Preamble

The House met at a Quarter before Three of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

KING'S SPEECH (ANSWER TO ADDRESS).

The Vice Chamberlain of the Household (Major Davies) reported His Majesty's Answer to the Address, as followeth:—

I have received with great satisfaction, the loyal and dutiful expression of your thanks for the Speech with which I have opened the present Session of Parliament.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

Bridge of Allan Gas Order Confirmation Bill [Lords],

Campbeltown Harbour, Water, and Gas Order Confirmation Bill,

National Trust for Scotland Order Confirmation Bill [Lords],

Considered; to be read the Third time To-morrow.

Perth Corporation Order Confirmation Bill [Lords],

Rothesay Corporation Gas Order Confirmation Bill [Lords],

Consideration deferred till Monday next.

Dundee Corporation Order Confirmation Bill,

Read a Second time, and ordered to be considered To-morrow.

Edinburgh Corporation Order Confirmation Bill,

Second Reading deferred till Monday next.

CIVIL CONTINGENCIES FUND, 1934.

Copy ordered,
of Accounts of the Civil Contingencies Fund, 1934, showing (1) the Receipts and Payments in connection with the Fund in the year ended the 31st day of March, 1935; (2) the Distribution of the Capital of the Fund at the commencement and close of the year; together with a copy of the Correspondence with the Comptroller and Auditor-General thereon."—[Mr. W. S. Morrison.]

Oral Answers to Questions — UNEMPLOYMENT.

HOSPITALS (SPECIAL AREAS).

Mr. STOREY: asked the Minister of Labour whether the Commissioner for the special areas is now prepared to make grants to the governing bodies of voluntary hospitals in the special areas towards the cost of the provision of new or the extension or alteration of existing hospitals or out-patient departments in the same way as he is prepared to make such grants to local authorities?

The MINISTER of LABOUR (Mr. Ernest Brown): Yes, Sir. The Commissioner is prepared to consider applications of this kind and to make grants on certain conditions.

Mr. STOREY: Will the right hon. Gentleman convey to the Commissioner the thanks of the voluntary hospitals in the special areas for the opportunity he is affording them to improve their facilities?

LANCASHIRE.

Mr. RHYS DAVIES: asked the Minister of Labour (1) whether he is aware that about 50 per cent. of the working population are unemployed in the urban districts of Aspull, Blackrod, Hindley, and Westhoughton; and can he make arrangements for these areas to be brought under the purview of the special Commissioners;
(2) whether he will cause inquiries to be made as to whether industrial and economic conditions in parts of the county of Lancashire have deteriorated so much during the last few years as to warrant their falling into the same special category as the county of Durham, parts of South Wales, and portions of Scotland, so that all such depressed areas may receive similar treatment and financial aid from the Government and local authorities?

Mr. E. BROWN: As regards Hindley and Westhoughton, the only areas out of the four specified by the hon. Member for which separate figures are available, the unemployment percentages in November were 34.1 at Hindley and 29.5 at Westhoughton. More generally, however, I may say that there are districts outside the special areas in which the


unemployment percentage is as high as in certain parts of the special areas; but there is this important distinction that those districts represent pockets of unemployment among surroundings of diversified industries rather than the widespread and prolonged depression associated with dependence on a very small number of industries which is the characteristic of the special areas. While the Government naturally will not close the door to any development which further experience may suggest, they remain of opinion that the special areas were properly selected for exceptional treatment of an experimental nature.

Mr. DAVIES: Does not the right hon. Gentleman really think that the whole of these areas ought to come under review once again, because there are patches of Lancashire as big as Durham and Glamorganshire which have been made derelict by the depressions as anything in the special areas?

Mr. BROWN: The hon. Gentleman will gather from my answer that that is appreciated. The door is not closed to any developments that further experience may suggest.

Mr. TINKER: Could any arrangements be made, where people have to travel outside the district to work, to meet travelling expenses?

Mr. BROWN: That is another point. The hon. Member had better put it on the Paper.

Mr. GEORGE GRIFFITHS: Cannot these depressed areas if they make application, somehow be got inside and be called depressed special areas?

Mr. BROWN: That would require legislation.

SHARE FISHERMEN (INSURANCE).

Captain PETER MACDONALD: asked the Minister of Labour whether he is yet in a position to make any statement with regard to the proposal to bring share fishermen within the scope of the unemployment insurance scheme?

Mr. E. BROWN: I would refer my hon. and gallant Friend to the reply given on 9th December to the hon. Member for Lowestoft (Mr. Loftus), of which I am sending him a copy.

Mr. MARKLEW: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that large numbers of these men are in receipt of public assistance in circumstances which make for physical and moral deterioration?

Mr. BROWN: The answer says that the problem will go before the committee at an early date.

WEST CUMBERLAND.

Mr. W. ROBERTS: asked the Minister of Labour how much money has been actually spent to date by way of Government grants or schemes for the relief of unemployment in the special area of West Cumberland, and how much further has been promised or it is proposed to spend; and whether the Government are now willing to promote legislation enabling them to establish new industries in this area?

Mr. E. BROWN: It would be a laborious task to compile figures of all Government grants made to this area. In common with other areas of heavy unemployment it has received and continues to receive a large amount of financial assistance, the extent of which may be illustrated from the fact that in 1933–34 the amount of Government grants to the county of Cumberland was more than twice as much as the amount raised in local rates. The Commissioner for special areas in England and Wales has spent up to the present approximately £13,000 in the West Cumberland area, and he estimates his commitments in that area at present as £200,000. The Commissioner is doing his utmost to secure the setting up of new industries in this and the other parts of the special area for which he is concerned.

Captain DOWER: When is the report likely to be received, and will it have special reference to West Cumberland?

Mr. BROWN: Early in the New Year, I believe.

Mr. ROBERTS: Are the Government now willing to promote legislation enabling them to establish new industries?

Mr. BROWN: Not at the moment.

Captain DOWER: Are there likely to be suggestions for increased power for wider use of the fund?

Mr. BROWN: The hon. and gallant Gentleman had better wait for the introduction of the report.

EXCHANGES.

Mr. E. SMITH: asked the Minister of Labour whether he is aware of the need for the provision of Employment Exchanges in suitable buildings at Fenton and Longton; and what steps will be taken to meet this need?

Mr. BROWN: I agree that there is need for more accommodation at the Longton Employment Exchange and arrangements have been made to extend the existing building. Applicants from Fenton can use either the Longton or the Stoke Exchange.

Mr. HOLLAND: asked the Minister of Labour whether he is aware that in industrial villages where branches of the area Employment Exchange are open one day in the week no vacancy list appears except on the day for signing on; and will he consider having a daily vacancy list posted in all such branches?

Mr. E. BROWN: I am looking into this matter, and will communicate with the hon. Member as soon as possible.

STATISTICS.

Mr. STOREY: asked the Minister of Labour the number of the unemployed registered at the Sunderland, Pallion, and Southwick-on-Wear Employment Exchanges and the Sunderland Juvenile Employment Bureau on 22nd July, 1935; and how many of them had been unemployed for the following periods: one year but less than two years, two years but less than three years, three years but less than four years, four years but less than five years, and five years and over?

Mr. E. BROWN: As the reply includes a number of figures, I will, if I may, circulate a statement in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. STOREY: What is the total in these five categories?

Mr. BROWN: My hon. Friend can make the addition.

Following is the Statement:

The total number of unemployed persons on the registers of the Sunderland, Pallion and Southwick-on-Wear Employment Exchanges and the Sunderland District Juvenile Employment Bureau at

22nd July, 1935, was 24,622. Statistics relating to the length of the last spell of unemployment are available only in respect of persons applying for insurance benefit or unemployment allowances. The number of such applicants on the registers of these exchanges at 22nd July, 1935, who had been continuously on the registers for periods of 12 months or more were as shown below:


Period on register.
Number.


One year but less than two years
2,692


Two years but less than three years
1,739


Three years but less than four years
1,765


Four years but less than five years
2,243


Five years or more
1,125


Of persons who had been on the registers for extended periods a proportion, which will increase as the period on the register increases, may have had one or more short spells of employment lasting not more than three days each during such periods.

GRANTS (SPECIAL AREAS).

Mr. D. L. DAVIES: asked the Minister of Labour how much money has actually been disbursed to date by the Commissioners of special areas in England, South Wales and Monmouthshire, and Scotland, respectively; what proportion of these amounts has been expended in the form of salaries to officials appointed by the Commissioners or by the Government; and whether he can indicate the nature of the undertakings for which grants have actually been made?

Mr. E. BROWN: As the reply is somewhat long I will, if I may, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT. If the hon. Member desires further information perhaps he will communicate with me.

Following is the reply:

Up to 30th November, 1935, the payments made by the Commissioner for the Special Areas (England and Wales) amounted to about £296,000, of which approximately £18,000 represents salaries of officials. As the hon. Member will appreciate, the commitments entered into by the Commissioner and now amounting for England and Wales to about £2,800,000, cannot result in payments from the Exchequer until expenditure is actually incurred. I could not,


within the limits of an answer to a question, give full details of the nature of the grants made. Generally speaking, they fall under three heads:

(1) To local authorities and other bodies towards the cost of public works, including sewerage, hospitals and other health services, site clearance, quay and harbour facilities.
(2) To local authorities and the Land Settlement Association for the development of smallholdings, group holdings and allotments.
(3) To the National Council of Social Service and similar bodies for the development of social services.

As regards Scotland, perhaps the hon. Member will address a question to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State.

APPEALS.

Mr. W. JOSEPH STEWART: asked the Minister of Labour the number of appeals dealt with by the appeals tribunals, under the Unemployment Assistance Board, since 7th January; and the number in which increases have been granted?

Mr. BROWN: During the period 7th January to 30th November this year 11,486 appeals from determinations made by officers of the Board were dealt with by appeals tribunals. In 3,496 cases increased determinations were granted.

Mr. SILVERMAN: asked the Minister of Labour whether he will ensure that, in future, the documents by which the Unemployment Assistance Board communicates its decision to applicants bear clearly upon the face of them a statement of the applicant's right to appeal and how that right may be exercised?

Mr. E. BROWN: Every person applying for an allowance is given a leaflet, B.L.18, which includes a paragraph about appeals. The form B.3z, by means of which the applicant is informed of the amount of the allowance granted by the Board, now contains on the back a notice that information with regard to facilities for appeal is given in a leaflet B.L.2z, which is obtainable at any employment exchange or area office of the Board. The same or a similar notice appears on certain other forms and it

is proposed as soon as possible to include it in all cases in which it is relevant. I am sending the hon. Member copies of the form B.3z and of the leaflets.

Mr. SILVERMAN: While I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for the copies of documents that have been sent to me, is he aware that forms are still being issued all over the country which contain no reference to any right of appeal at all, and that the statement on the back of the form to which he refers in his answer gives no information at all as to the right of appeal, but merely states that such information may be obtained elsewhere?

Mr. BROWN: If the hon. Member has any leaflets which do not compare with the ones now being issued, perhaps he will let me see them?

Mr. SILVERMAN: That is not quite what I asked.

CONTINUOUS UNEMPLOYMENT.

Mr. GRAHAM WHITE: asked the Minister of Labour whether he will consider the advisability of inviting the local advisory committees of the Ministry of Labour to give special consideration to the cases of all those in their areas who have been continuously unemployed for periods of six months and longer and to make recommendations with a view to their re-employment?

Mr. E. BROWN: All local employment committees were asked earlier this year to consider and advise on the problem, as it affected their areas, of those who had been long unemployed and in view of the attention which they are giving to the matter, I do not think it necessary to refer the matter to them again at present. I should like to take this opportunity to express my appreciation of the valuable work on this problem in Birkenhead which has been done by the committee of which my hon. Friend is chairman.

PROFESSIONAL WORKERS (INSURANCE).

Mr. LAWSON: asked the Minister of Labour whether the statutory committee under the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1934, has yet arrived at any decision on the question of insurance of professional workers?

Mr. E. BROWN: I understand that the Unemployment Insurance Statutory Committee have practically completed the taking of evidence on this matter, and are at present considering their report.

UNEMPLOYMENT ASSISTANCE BOARD (REPORT).

Mr. LAWSON: asked the Minister of Labour whether he will publish the report of the Unemployment Assistance Board in order that Members may be fully informed as to the operation of the means test regulations?

Mr. E. BROWN: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply to a question upon this subject by the hon. Member for Birkenhead, East (Mr. White) on 5th December.

Mr. LAWSON: Yes. But the answer referred to tells us nothing. Is the right hon. Gentleman prepared to publish this report which is so necessary to a proper consideration of future regulations?

Mr. BROWN: If the hon. Gentleman studies the answer, he will see that it is quite definite. I propose to supply hon. Members with all relevant information with regard to the working of the present regulations.

Mr. LAWSON: Does that mean that the particular report on the investigation into the working of this business is to be published?

Mr. BROWN: It means precisely what it says.

Mr. DAVID GRENFELL: Will the right hon. Gentleman inform the House as to the extent of the departure from the standstill agreement and in how many cases have reductions in benefit taken place since the standstill agreement was put in operation?

Mr. BROWN: That is a special question on another subject.

Mr. LAWSON: Members of the House were all deceived as to the working of these regulations, and both Members and Ministers were very much surprised. Everyone is in the dark. Could not the right hon. Gentleman make the report accessible to all Members of the House?

Mr. BROWN: There will be a report by the Board, of course.

Mr. BUCHANAN: Will the Minister please answer the hon. Member's ques-

tion? Will he make all the information available to the Members of the House—not merely this report, but every report he has received, in order that we may know exactly the working of the Act?

Mr. BROWN: I have nothing to add to my previous answer on that point.

Mr. BUCHANAN: Why not?

PIT-HEAD BATH ATTENDANTS (INSURANCE).

Mr. LAWSON: asked the Minister of Labour whether he is now in a position to state that attendants at pit-head baths are to be treated as insurable under the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1934?

Mr. E. BROWN: The draft Regulation on this subject has been submitted to the Unemployment Insurance Statutory Committee, and is, I understand, at present under active consideration by that committee.

Mr. LAWSON: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether there is a report on this matter, as there was a very definite promise given on the matter in the middle of last year, and he issued a circular too; and is it not time this matter was proceeded with?

Mr. BROWN: The hon. Member knows that this committee has had an immense amount of work to do, and I understand that the decision is not likely to be long delayed.

Mr. J. J. DAVIDSON: Is the position of the right hon. Gentleman that he is afraid to issue the regulation?

Mr. BROWN: The hon. Member must understand that copies of the draft regulations can be had on application to the secretary of the Statutory Committee.

TRADING ESTATE (WEST CUMBERLAND).

Mr. ANDERSON: asked the Minister of Labour whether it is proposed to establish a trading factory in the special area of West Cumberland?

Mr. E. BROWN: I understand that the hon. Member has in mind a trading estate. The Commissioner has this matter under his consideration.

BENEFIT.

Mr. ANDERSON: asked the Minister of Labour how many persons, male and


female separately, were receiving unemployment insurance benefit and receiving transitional benefit, respectively, on 30th November last in the areas covered by the Whitehaven Borough Council, Ennerdale Rural District Council, and Milldom

The available statistics relate to Employment Exchange areas and not to local government areas. The following Table gives the desired figures for 25th November, 1935, for the Employment Exchanges which are situated in the areas in question:—


—
Whitehaven Employment Exchange.
Cleator Moor Employment Exchange.
Millom Employment Exchange.


Insured persons with claims admitted for insurance benefit:—





Men, aged 18–64
…
…
…
…
2,123
305
189


Boys, aged 16 and 17
…
…
…
…
101
8
4


Women, aged 18–64
…
…
…
…
135
75
22


Girls, aged 16 and 17
…
…
…
…
14
13
3


Total
…
…
…
…
…
2,373
401
218


Insured persons with applications authorised for unemployment allowances:—





Men, aged 18–64
…
…
…
…
1,302
1,503
342


Women, aged 18–64
…
…
…
…
28
10
—


Total
…
…
…
…
…
1,330
1,513
342

Mr. GIBBINS: asked the Minister of Labour whether he will issue orders to discontinue the taking of the height and weight of the unemployed as a necessary qualification for benefit?

Mr. E. BROWN: There is no such qualification for benefit. Perhaps the hon. Member will let me know what cases he has in mind.

Mr. GIBBINS: Is the Minister aware that applicants to the public assistance committee have been asked very often to give their height and weight?

Mr. BROWN: I do not understand the question, but if the hon. Member will let me know what he has in mind, I will have the matter investigated.

Mr. LOGAN: asked the Minister of Labour whether he is aware that there are 57,336 cases of unemployed in Liverpool denied extra grant at Christmas and the New Year; and whether he has made, or will make, recommendations to the Unemployment Assistance Board to make grants equal to those given by the Liverpool assistance committee?

Rural District Council, in the county of Cumberland?

Mr. E. Brown: As the reply includes a table of figures, I will if I may, circulate a statement in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following is the statement:

Mr. E. BROWN: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given to the right hon. Member for Bow and Bromley (Mr. Lansbury) last Monday, of which I am sending him a copy.

Mr. LOGAN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the reply given by the Parliamentary Secretary to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bow and Bromley did not contain the information for which I am asking, and that he said that it would receive consideration? Three or four days have since elapsed, and I should like to know what consideration has been given to the matter? May I have an answer to that question?

Mr. BROWN: The answer is combined with the previous question. As the hon. Member knows, it is a matter of two things. First of all local practice, and, secondly, a report as to whether in certain cases the allowances under the board exceed the rate of transitional payments.

Mr. LOGAN: In view of the ambiguity of the reply that has been given, may I have a definite statement as to whether it is the intention to do anything or nothing in regard to this case?

Mr. BROWN: The hon. Member must understand that the answer was quite clear.

Mr. LOGAN: I beg to give notice that owing to the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I shall raise this matter at the earliest opportunity.

Mr. WOODS: asked the Minister of Labour what arrangements he is making for the payment of the unemployed during Christmas week; and can he give an assurance that all the unemployed will receive their pay before Christmas day?

Mr. E. BROWN: The Employment Exchanges will be closed on Boxing Day, Thursday, 26th December, and open on Friday, 27th December. Payments ordinarily made on Thursday will in Christmas week be made on Tuesday, 24th December; payments ordinarily made on Friday will be made on Friday, 27th December.

Mr. WOODS: Can the Minister say what difficulties there are in the way of making the whole of the Christmas week payments before Christmas Day? Is he aware that the whole country would desire that no child of an unemployed person should spend a blank Christmas because there is no money before Christmas Day?

Mr. BROWN: The answer is that that has been the previous practice, and it has been approved. The hon. Member will understand that if payment were made on the Tuesday instead of the Friday, it would be a very long time from the Tuesday to the Friday week.

Mr. WOODS: While I appreciate the fact that it has been the practice in the past, is the Minister aware that when that practice has been adopted it has caused unhappiness and dissatisfaction in thousands of homes?

Mr. BROWN: That is not my information.

SEASONAL EMPLOYMENT (REGULATIONS).

Mr. WHITE: asked the Minister of Labour whether he is in a position to make a statement with regard to the working of the recent modification of the regulations dealing with seasonal employment?

Mr. E. BROWN: The new seasonal workers' Order came into force on 29th

August. At that date 630 claims were under disallowance owing to the operation of the former Regulation, and the new Order enabled 296 of them to be allowed. In the months of September, October and November, 1935, 7,085 claims were disallowed by courts of referees under the seasonal workers' Order as compared with 11,875 claims which were disallowed under the previous Regulation in the corresponding period of 1934.

Mr. BUCHANAN: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell me whether any steps were taken to review the claims disallowed, and do not the regulations make it possible for such claims to be allowed?

Mr. BROWN: More than 600 were claims for disallowances to be reviewed, and of these 296 were allowed.

SHOREDITCH.

Mr. THURTLE: asked the Minister of Labour (1) whether he is in a position to state how many insured persons in Shoreditch are at present being dealt with by the Unemployment Assistance Board;
(2) the total number of unemployed men and women, respectively, in the Shoreditch area at the end of November or at the nearest date for which the figures are available?

Mr. E. BROWN: The total numbers of unemployed men and women, aged 18 and over, resident in the Metropolitan Borough of Shoreditch, on the registers of Employment Exchanges at 25th November, 1935, were 2,976 and 908 respectively. Statistics showing the numbers of these persons who were applying for unemployment allowances are not available, but of the total of 5,306 men and 1,505 women registered at the Shoreditch Employment Exchange as unemployed at 25th November, 1,961 men and 142 women were applying for unemployment allowances.

COTTON INDUSTRY.

Mr. KELLY: asked the Minister of Labour the number of men, women, and young people registered as unemployed from the cotton trade?

Mr. E. BROWN: As the reply includes a nures I will, if I may, cit in the OFFICIAL

Following is the statement:


NUMBERS OF INSURED PERSONS in the cotton industry classification recorded as unemployed in Great Britain at 25th November, 1935.


Men aged 18–64
30,294


Women aged 18–64
46,170


Boys aged 16 and 17
259


Girls aged 16 and 17
556


Boys aged 14 and 15
175


Girls aged 14 and 15
300


Total aged 14–64
77,754

DOCK WORKS (LIVERPOOL).

Mr. GIBBINS: asked the Minister of Labour whether he is aware that dock workers in Liverpool when unemployed have to sign 11 times a week; and can he now take steps to reduce the number of signings?

Mr. E. BROWN: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply that I gave him on 25th July. The investigation by the National Joint Council for Dock Labour is still proceeding.

Mr. GIBBINS: Can the Minister say how long these proceedings are to go on, and when he expects a reply?

Mr. BROWN: I cannot say, but I will make special inquiry and let the hon. Member know the result.

Mr. G. GRIFFITHS: Is it possible for these people who have to sign on 11 times a week to get a special grant for shoe leather?

THREE-PARTY COMMITTEE.

Mr. BUCHANAN: asked the Prime Minister whether he will cause to have published all the papers and proposals made before the three-party conference held in 1931 at the request of the Government of that date, in connection with unemployment insurance and the means test, in view of recent discussions that have taken place as to what occurred?

The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Baldwin): The Committee to which I presume the hon. Member refers was an Advisory Committee to the Government  was announced at the time that ings would be confidentipared to depart

Mr. MAXTON: But since that time the Prime Minister must realise that statements have been made purporting to be reports of the proceedings of that Committee, and is it not desirable, in view of the conflicting reports of the proceedings of that Committee, that a full statement should be made so that we may know precisely what took place?

The PRIME MINISTER: No, I do not agree with the hon. Member.

Mr. BUCHANAN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the present Minister of Labour was a member of that Committee, and that he has intimated that he would like the reports published, I suppose because they will be very favourable to him. In view of the fact that all sorts of rumours and statements have been circulated, will not the right hon. Gentleman have the reports published and put an end to these rumours once and for all?

The PRIME MINISTER: I have considered the matter, and I am not disposed to go back on the decision which was taken by my predecessor.

Oral Answers to Questions — SHOP ASSISTANTS.

WAGE AGREEMENTS.

Mr. LESLIE: asked the Minister of Labour, arising out of the representations made to him by the National Amalgamated Union of Shop Assistants, Warehousemen and Clerks, what steps he proposes to take to persuade the Home and Colonial Stores, Limited, the Meadow Dairy Company, Limited, and Pearks Dairies, Limited, to fall into line with the established practice throughout trade and commerce, namely, the practice of regulating wages by collective agreements between the trade unions and the employers?

Mr. E. BROWN: Officers of my Department have been in touch with the companies and the union, and, as a result, arrangements have been made whereby a joint meeting between the parties will be held in the New Year.

FORTY-EIGHT-HOUR WEEK.

Sir CHARLES CAYZER: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department the present attitude of the Government with regard to the enforcement of


the recommendations of the Select Committee for the establishment of a 48-hour working week for all shop assistants?

The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir John Simon): The recommendation of the Select Committee referred to was not unanimous but represented the view of six only out of the 11 members of the Committee. Legislation to the effect indicated is not in contemplation.

Mr. RHYS DAVIES: In view of the fact that the distributing trade is better able to reduce the number of hours of their assistants than any other industry in the country, will the right hon. Gentleman be good enough to reconsider his attitude towards this problem?

Sir J. SIMON: The programme of contemplated legislation is a matter for the Government as a whole and the Prime Minister in particular.

Oral Answers to Questions — INTERNATIONAL LABOUR OFFICE.

Mr. MANDER: asked the Minister of Labour whether he intends to attend personally or through the Parliamentary Secretary the meetings of the International Labour Office?

Mr. E. BROWN: The question of the representation of His Majesty's Government at any particular meeting of the International Labour Organisation must be decided in the light of the agenda and other circumstances of that meeting. I hope personally to attend the next Conference of the organisation in June, 1936.

Mr. MANDER: Will my right hon. Friend be very careful not to stay in Paris on the way?

Oral Answers to Questions — SHOPS ACT, 1934.

Mr. RHYS DAVIES: asked the Home Secretary whether he is satisfied that adequate arrangements are being made to implement the provisions of the Shops Act, 1934?

Sir J. SIMON: As the hon. Member is aware, the administration of the Shops Acts rests with local authorities, and I have I no general information as to the arrangements made for enforcement of the Shops Act, 1934. I have no reason, however, in the light of such information as has reached me, to suppose that the Act is not being properly enforced.

Mr. DAVIES: In view of the importance of the provisions of this Act, which are to come into operation shortly, covering so many young people, will the right hon. Gentleman consider the propriety of issuing to local authorities a circular calling their attention to the necessity of implementing the Act?

Sir J. SIMON: I will look into that.

Oral Answers to Questions — MAGISTRATES' CLERKS.

Mr. MANDER: asked the Home Secretary the number of whole-time magistrates' clerks and the number engaged part-time in private practice; and in how many cases these latter appear for the police in other districts?

Sir J. SIMON: I have no exact figures, but I understand that there are about 850 justices' clerks, of whom about 50 are whole-time officers. I have no information about the second part of the question.

Mr. MANDER: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether he considers that the practice referred to in the latter part of the question is a desirable one?

Sir J. SIMON: My hon. Friend, I am sure, will see that in the case of petty sessions where there is very litle work to do, it is hardly possible to insist that the clerk occupied on a few days of the year should remain without work for the rest of the year.

Mr. MANDER: Is there not other work besides police prosecutions in the Courts?

Oral Answers to Questions — POOR PRISONERS' DEFENCE ACT.

Mr. MANDER: asked the Home Secretary the extent to which advantage has been taken of the Poor Prisoners' Defence Act, 1930, in magistrates' courts; in how many cases legal aid has been granted; and what percentage this forms of the total cases at which the defendant has pleaded not guilty and was unassisted by legal aid?

Sir J. SIMON: As the answer involves a number of figures, I think it will be more convenient to circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following is the answer:

Figures are published each year in the Criminal Statistics of the numbers of


legal aid and defence certificates granted and refused. The number of legal aid certificates (as distinct from defence certificates) granted by magistrates in each of the last four years was 501 in 1931, 632 in 1932, 655 in 1933, and. 723 in 1934. As regards the last part of the question, the hon. Member will appreciate that in a large number of cases, though the defendant denies the charge no question of legal aid arises. The number of cases in which legal aid was refused by the magistrates or declined by the defendant is as follows:

135 in 1931;
237 in 1932;
228 in 1933; and
224 in 1934.

Oral Answers to Questions — POLICE.

EXAMINING BOARD.

Mr. DAY: asked the Home Secretary with regard to the representations made by various police forces in England and Wales asking that a central examining board be appointed to deal with the question of police promotions, whether he will give particulars of any decision he has arrived at?

Sir J. SIMON: This question has been considered more than once and the decision has been against setting up any central examining board for police examinations in England and Wales. No recent representations have been made to me on the subject.

Mr. DAY: Is it a fact that the system is operating in Scotland? Does the right hon. Gentleman desire this country to be behind Scotland?

Sir J. SIMON: There are two views as to which is the more advanced country. Perhaps a system of examination suits Scotsmen better than Englishmen or Welshmen.

MOTOR-CARS.

Sir GIFFORD FOX: asked the Home Secretary how many of the motorcars used by the Metropolitan Police are all-British motor-cars of British design, and how many are vehicles manufactured under licence from a foreign country or foreign company?

Sir J. SIMON: All the motor vehicles used by the Metropolitan Police are British built.

PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS (VOTING ARRANGEMENTS).

Captain DOWER: asked the Home Secretary whether his attention has been called to a number of complaints made in the recent Parliamentary Election with regard to our present method of the recording and counting of votes in Parliamentary Elections; and what steps, if any, he intends to take to have the present procedure improved upon?

Sir J. SIMON: I am not aware that there have been any complaints with regard to the method of recording votes unless the reference is to the failure to stamp certain ballot papers. On that point I would refer my hon. and gallant Friend to the reply which I gave the hon. Member for the Springburn Division on the 5th instant. As regards the counting of votes, the method of counting used in each constituency is a matter for the decision of the Returning Officer, who selects the method which he considers best suited to meet the circumstances.

Mr. G. HARDIE: Has the Home Secretary considered the possibility of putting a machine on the table which would perforate the paper, so that the voter could see that his paper was really stamped?

Oral Answers to Questions — TRANSPORT.

TRAFFIC LIGHTS.

Captain DOWER: asked the Home Secretary whether he is aware that on Wednesday evening, 4th December, traffic endeavouring to cross Grosvenor Place at Lower Grosvenor Place was unable to do so for a considerable time, even though the automatic traffic lights signalled from time to time they should do so; and what special steps, if any, are taken to provide police officers to take over control of traffic when automatic light signals cause a blockage of traffic?

Sir J. SIMON: I am informed by the Commissioner of Police that traffic was very congested in the vicinity of Victoria Station on the occasion mentioned. The possibility of congestion had been foreseen and a police officer was specially posted to this junction; despite these efforts, however, a certain amount of delay was unfortunately unavoidable. The police have standing instructions, in the event of emergency or in exceptional


traffic conditions, to assume control at points normally controlled by automatic signals.

Captain DOWER: Does the right hon. Gentleman recognise that it is dangerous for light signalling to go on when there is traffic immediately in front?

Sir J. SIMON: Yes. That is the reason why we have police stationed there.

DRIVING TESTS.

Mr. DAY: asked the Minister of Transport whether, in view of the fact that in the recent figures published in connection with the examination of applicants for driving tests 13 per cent. failed to pass, he will consider in future making known to the applicants who have failed to pass the test in what manner their failures err, in order that learner-drivers may receive special instructions in that connection?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of TRANSPORT (Captain Austin Hudson): My right hon. Friend has already given instructions that examiners are to inform unsuccessful candidates whether they have failed because of defective eyesight or on other grounds, and to indicate, if so requested, the points to which they would be well advised to devote special attention.

Mr. DAY: Will the hon. and gallant Gentleman consider having those replies also sent in writing to the candidates—those who do not know?

HORSE TRAFFIC, LONDON.

Sir G. FOX: asked the Minister of Transport whether he has now received replies to the questionnaire which he issued to horse-using firms in London in regard to his proposals to reduce further the facilities for such transport; and how many of these replies indicated hostility to his restriction scheme?

Sir JOSEPH NALL: asked the Minister of Transport whether, in consequence of the protests which he has received, it is still intended to introduce in the near future any regulations putting further difficulties in the way of users of horse transport in London; and, if so, when he intends to submit such regulations to the London Traffic Advisory Board?

Captain HUDSON: The replies to the questionnaire are not yet complete. My

right hon. Friend has already given an assurance that before coming to any conclusion he will give the closest consideration to any representations which are received.

Sir PERCY HARRIS: In considering the representations, will the hon. and gallant Gentleman have consideration for the large number of men who are employed as drivers of horses and who are suffering at present from a large amount of unemployment?

Captain HUDSON: That is one of the considerations.

ROAD ACCIDENTS, WEST HAM.

Mr. THORNE: asked the Minister of Transport how many fatal and other road accidents have taken place in the borough of West Ham during the years 1933, 1934, and up to the nearest available date; and in which streets and roads the greatest number of accidents occurred?

Captain HUDSON: The numbers of street accidents in the county borough of West Ham involving personal injury over the periods in question are as follow:


Period.
Fatal Accidents.
Other accidents involving personal injury.


1933
27
1,297


1934
32
1,313


1935 (10 months)
24
1,004


The roads in West Ham on which accidents involving personal injury appear most frequently to occur are Barking Road (between Silvertown Way and Balaam Street), Stratford High Street, and Romford Road.

PROPOSED EVERTON TUNNEL.

Mr. LOGAN: asked the Minister of Transport whether he is now in a position to report on the official communication received from Liverpool in July last as regards the suggested Everton tunnel; and whether he is prepared to give a grant towards its completion?

Captain HUDSON: On the information at present before them as to the volume of traffic likely to use the tunnel, the Government would not feel justified in approving, for the purpose of a grant


from the Road Fund, the heavy expenditure which the scheme will involve, but my right hon. Friend will, of course, consider any further information which may become available if conditions change.

Oral Answers to Questions — JUVENILE EMPLOYMENT (WORKING HOURS).

Mr. LOVAT-FRASER: asked the Home Secretary whether he is aware that boys and girls from 14 to 18 years of age in the Midlands and elsewhere are working 12 hours a day, inclusive of meal times, on five days in the week and half a day on Saturday; and whether he will take steps to introduce legislation to stop these excessive hours of work?

Sir J. SIMON: I am aware that such hours are still worked in a certain number of cases, at any rate during busy periods. As announced by the Prime Minister in the course of Debate on the 3rd instant it is the hope and purpose of the Government to introduce a consolidating and amending Factories Bill next Session.

Oral Answers to Questions — FACTORY INSPECTION.

Mr. LESLIE: asked the Home Secretary whether the statement made by the Chief Inspector of Factories, at the international meeting in October last of representatives of labour inspection service, can be published for the information of this House?

Sir J. SIMON: I am not clear what precisely the hon. Member has in mind. I am informed by the Chief Inspector that he took part in the discussions but made no set statement.

Mr. LESLIE: Can the Chief Inspector's report be communicated to the House?

Sir J. SIMON: I think it is already available as a League of Nations paper. If the hon. Member will communicate with me I will ascertain, with his help, exactly what is the document to which he refers.

Oral Answers to Questions — AIR RAIDS (PRECAUTIONS).

Mr. GARDNER: asked the Home Secretary what measure of agreement

has been achieved between his Department and the local authorities in the matter of providing against a possible air attack; and how many local authorities have prepared and submitted to him schemes for aiding, in such an event, persons injured and persons in danger?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd): The Air Raid Precautions Department is holding a series of conferences with local authorities throughout the country; and local authorities almost universally have shown their willingness to co-operate with the Government in the formulation of precautionary measures for the protection of the public against the effects of air attack. So far there has hardly been time for local authorities to complete detailed schemes for their areas; but a considerable number of schemes are already being discussed between the Department and the local authority concerned.

Mr. THORNE: Does the Under-Secretary not think that the best way to ensure protection is for the Government to agree to the abolition of air bombing?

Mr. GARDNER: asked the Home Secretary whether, in connection with measures to meet possible attacks from the air, he intends to recommend or suggest to local authorities any increase in the normal provision of fire extinguishing apparatus in the various localities; and whether additional men are to be trained for the purpose of strengthening fire brigades in an emergency?

Mr. LLOYD: These matters are being considered by the departmental committee under the chairmanship of Lord Riverdale which was appointed to review the fire brigade services in England and Wales, and my right hon. Friend proposes to await the report of the committee before taking any action.

Mr. ACLAND: asked the Home Secretary whether His Majesty's Government know of any gas-mask which is capable of giving to the wearer complete protection against any probable concentration of every poisonous gas which is known to the Government; and are such gas-masks available to the public


or likely, in the near future, to become available to the public, and in what numbers and at what prices?

Mr. LLOYD: The whole subject of the arrangements to be made for the provision of respirators has been under close examination for some time past. It is hoped that it will be possible to make a full statement on this subject in the near future.

Mr. ACLAND: May I take it that the answer to the question at present is "No"?

Mr. LLOYD: No, Sir.

Oral Answers to Questions — CHRISTMAS RECESS.

Mr. HOLMES: asked the Prime Minister whether he can give the date upon which the House will resume after the Christmas Recess?

The PRIME MINISTER: As soon as I am in a position to do so, I shall make an announcement in the usual way in the statement on Business.

Oral Answers to Questions — PRISON SERVICE.

Mr. MONTAGUE: asked the Home Secretary whether, seeing that the minimum rate of pay of a prison officer is now 45s. 11d. per week, there is any prospect of the scale of pay being improved, having regard to the hazardous nature of the prison officers' duties?

Sir J. SIMON: The figure of 45s. 11d. is the minimum cash payment, and in addition officers receive housing or an allowance in lieu and other emoluments. The question of scales of pay is under discussion with representatives of the prison staff, but I am not at present in a position to make any further statement on the matter.

Mr. MONTAGUE: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether there has been a substantial reduction in pay?

Sir J. SIMON: I cannot say that without notice.

Mr. MONTAGUE: asked the Home Secretary the terms of the prison department standing order relating to written charges made against officers; whether facilities are provided for officers charged with offences to see the nature of the

charges made against them before any disciplinary action is taken; and if officers are required to sign the documents shown to them dealing with the charges apart from signing their own statement?

Sir J. SIMON: The Standing Order provides that
When an officer is charged with an offence he will be reported to the Governor, and will be called upon to write his reply on the report, but he will first be allowed to see all the information against him, so that he may know exactly what he is accused of.
Care is always taken to se that an officer who is charged with a disciplinary offence is made fully aware of the nature of the charge. The practice is to give to the officer a document setting out the charge and for the officer to write his reply on the back of this document.

Mr. MONTAGUE: In view of the fact that these officers are under semi-military discipline, can there be some appeal in case of serious offences?

Sir J. SIMON: This appeal was brought before my predecessor and I have myself had an opportunity of considering it. That is a form of appeal which I think is very proper, as long as it is properly discharged. I can only tell the hon. Member that I am quite satisfied that in this case the requirements of the rule were complied with in the spirit and in the letter.

Oral Answers to Questions — SUNDAY TRADING.

Mr. ACLAND: asked the Home Secretary whether, having regard to the expressed desires of several traders' associations for legislation to restrict Sunday trading, he will consider introducing such legislation during the life of the present Parliament?

Sir J. SIMON: I understand that the Early Closing Association, in consultation with the principal organisations of employers and employed in the distributive trades, is at present engaged in the preparation of a Bill on the subject of Sunday trading, with a view to its introduction by a Private Member. I should welcome a discussion in the House on a Bill of this character, but I could not at present hold out any prospect of Government legislation on this controversial subject.

Oral Answers to Questions — EDUCATION.

SCHOOL BOOKS (CUMBERLAND).

Mr. ANDERSON: asked the President of the Board of Education how many school books under the control of the Cumberland Education Committee have been in constant use for one year, two years, three years, and over three years, respectively; and whether his Department have any particulars of the effect of the continuous use of old school books upon the spread of infectious diseases in schools?

Major DAVIES (Vice-Chamberlain of the Household): My right hon. Friend regrets that he has no information on the first part of the hon. Member's question. As regards the second part, while the continued use of old and soiled books in public elementary schools is to be deplored, my right hon. Friend has no grounds for suspecting that infectious diseases have spread by that means.

SCHOOL CLASSES (GLASGOW).

Mr. DAVIDSON: asked the President of the Board of Education whether he is aware of the crowding of working-class children in the elementary schools in Glasgow; and will he take immediate steps to place education on a non-class basis?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for SCOTLAND (Lieut.-Colonel Colville): I am informed there is a certain number of large classes in the Possilpark District of Glasgow, but in no case is the Code limit exceeded. The education authority have given close attention to the question of accommodation and staffing. A year ago there were 915 classes in Glasgow with a roll of over 50. The number is now reduced to 481. A new regulation reducing the maximum to 50 will come into force next August. Since 1926 Glasgow has built 27 new schools, and plans for a further 10 are already prepared. With regard to the last part of the question, there is no class distinction in the provision of public education in Scotland.

Mr. DAVIDSON: Is the hon. and gallant Member aware of the fact that there are still many classes in the working class districts of Glasgow of more than 50 pupils, and that in the secondary

schools and universities the distinction is laid down that the number of pupils are to be educated in classes much less in number. Is not that class distinction?

Oral Answers to Questions — HOUSING.

REPAIRS.

Mr. DAY: asked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that many houses throughout the country are becoming uninhabitable through the neglect of the owners to put them in reasonable repair; and will he consider the introduction of legislation which will compel owners of house property to spend in repairs the percentage of rents they are allowed to charge?

The MINISTER of HEALTH (Sir Kingsley Wood): The Rent Restrictions Acts contain provisions enabling a tenant to withhold so much of his rent as represents the permitted increase if his premises are not in a reasonable state of repair, and in these circumstances I do not consider that further legislation is necessary.

Mr. DAY: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in many of these houses the tenants have complained of this increased rent, especially in view of the fact that rats run all over the houses? Will he not take some action?

Sir K. WOOD: I have pointed out the remedy which is to their hand.

Major COLFOX: Is not the bad state of many of these houses due to want of destruction or to the negligence of the tenants living in them?

Mr. GARRO-JONES: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that tenants are not familiar with this extremely useful remedy, and will he advise local authorities who inspect these premises to acquaint them with this remedy?

Sir K. WOOD: That is another matter.

Mr. GARRO-JONES: Will the right hon. Gentleman ask sanitary officers to convey this information to them?

Sir K. WOOD: I have no authority over sanitary officers.

Mr. SILVERMAN: Is it not a fact that the remedy to which the Minister of Health referred in his answer can be


exercised by the sanitary authority in the district concerned, and will he not therefore draw the attention of the sanitary authorities to their statutory powers with a view to the exercise of these powers by the authorities where the tenants are not aware of the remedy?

Sir K. WOOD: I think that the sanitary authorities are aware of their powers.

BARNSLEY.

Mr. POTTS: asked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that the Barnsley county borough housing necessity requires 2,600 houses immediately; and what steps he proposes to take to build houses to let at rents which the working classes are able to pay?

Sir K. WOOD: I am not aware on what basis the figure mentioned by the hon. Member is estimated: the programme of the council for slum clearance provides for the erection of 1,215 new houses in the five-year period of which 451 have already been approved. The extent to which this programme will have to be implemented to meet the need from overcrowding will be determined by the survey now in progress.

Mr. POTTS: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the committee of the corporation has already a list of over 2,000 names of people who want houses?

Sir K. WOOD: As far as I am aware the programme which has been submitted to the Department is as I have said.

DIRECT LABOUR.

Mr. T. SMITH: asked the Minister of Health whether he will give a list of the names of the local authorities which have built houses by direct labour under the. Housing Acts from 1st October, 1933, to date, and the number of houses so built in each case?

Sir K. WOOD: I am sending the hon. Member the detailed information for which he has asked.

SPECIFICATIONS.

Mr. VIANT: asked the Minister of Health whether it is now a condition inserted by his Department, in the specifications for municipal houses, that wall plates and the bridging of joists be excluded?

Sir K. WOOD: In the rare case when a local authority propose to specify timber wall plates embedded in structural walls, my Department discourage it as not being in accordance with the best building practice. The bridging of floor joists where some stiffening is necessary, is not discouraged.

Oral Answers to Questions — CONTRIBUTORY OLD AGE PENSIONS.

Mr. A. V. ALEXANDER: asked the Minister of Health whether he will give special consideration to the claim for old age pension made by Mr. F. Higgins, of 102, Fern Road, Sheffield, in view of the fact that he has paid contributions from early in 1927 until July, 1935, when he became 65 years of age, and that the actual date of his re-entry into insurance as a voluntary contributor was a month late through no fault of Mr. Higgins, but owing to an alleged delay on the part of his approved society, and that the contributions actually paid by Mr. Higgins were accepted by the approved society and the National Health Insurance Department?

Sir K. WOOD: The right hon. Member is under a misapprehension. The time for making application to become a voluntary contributor had expired long before any question of insurance was raised by or on behalf of Mr. Higgins. Mr. Higgins was accepted by the approved society as a member who was compulsorily insurable on the strength of a statement in the application form that he was in employment, but his only employment was employment by his wife in respect of which he was neither required nor entitled to be insured. The contributions erroneously paid will be repaid to Mr. Higgins subject to a deduction in respect of expenses necessarily incurred in connection with his health insurance.

Oral Answers to Questions — PUBLIC ASSISTANCE.

CHRISTMAS RELIEF.

Mr. GALLACHER: asked the Minister of Health whether he proposes to take steps to instruct local public assistance officers and unemployment assistance boards to grant additional Christmas relief, and additional winter relief, for unemployed families?

Sir K. WOOD: Public assistance authorities have a duty to provide adequate and appropriate relief on all occasions and are empowered to incur reasonable expenditure on special allowances to persons in receipt of relief at Christmas time. I have no power to instruct them or their officers to grant relief and I do not think any reminder necessary.

Mr. GALLACHER: Is the Minister aware that some local authorities are granting such relief and that others are not, although the need may be more urgent? Is he also aware that the present operation of the means test, which no one will defend, is imposing and will impose terrible hardships on the unemployed in the coming winter, and will he not, pending new legislation in connection with the means test, issue a circular to local authorities so that many of the unemployed and their families may be saved hardship during the coming winter?

Sir K. WOOD: I have no authority to do that, and I do not think it is necessary.

SHOREDITCH.

Mr. THURTLE: asked the Minister of Health whether he is able to say how many people in Shoreditch are at present in receipt of relief from the public assistance committee?

Sir K. WOOD: The returns made to my Department relate to counties and county boroughs as a whole. I regret, therefore, that the desired figures are not available.

OLD AGE PENSIONERS.

Mr. GIBBINS: asked the Minister of Health the cost to public assistance authorities of helping old persons who are in receipt of old age pensions?

Sir K. WOOD: I regret that the information desired by the hon. Member is not available in my Department.

Oral Answers to Questions — PUBLIC HEALTH.

RURAL WATER SUPPLIES.

Sir G. FOX: asked the Minister of Health whether the full allocated subsidy of £1,000,000 for the improvement of rural water supplies has now been definitely distributed; and, if so, can he state, by counties, the aggregate allocated to each one of them?

Sir K. WOOD: £801,177 has been provisionally allocated. I will, with permission, circulate in the OFFICIAL REPORT details of the amounts so allocated to the various counties.

Following are the details:



£


Berks.
9,900


Bucks.
45,100


Cambs.
10,600


Chester
15,350


Cornwall
1,600


Cumberland
10,945


Derby
10,295


Devon
5,050


Dorset
15,966


Durham
2,100


Ely, Isle of
9,000


Essex
50,600


Glos.
5,900


Hereford
2,025


Herts.
7,750


Hunts.
9,000


Kent
700


Lancs.
5,400


Leicester
15,375


Lincs. Holland
41,800


Lincs. Kesteven
18,450


Lincs. Lindsey
59,900


Norfolk
42,283


Northants.
15,600


Notts.
21,600


Oxford
7,550


Peterborough
5,000


Rutland
150


Salop
6,650


Somerset
43,575


Southampton
3,875


Staffs.
16,940


Suffolk, East
9,150


Suffolk, West
28,188


Sussex, East
1,000


Warwick
4,075


Wilts.
40,000


Worcester
18,900


Yorks.—



East Riding
44,800


North Riding
20,650


West Riding
18,825


Anglesey
725


Brecon.
2,625


Caernarvon
11,500


Cardigan
9,950


Carmarthen
23,255


Denbigh
6,075


Flint
2,650


Glamorgan
22,600


Merioneth
1,275


Monmouth
680


Montgomery
3,450


Pembroke
14,775

VACCINATION

Mr. LEACH: asked the Minister of Health how many of the five cases of acute nervous disease following vaccination which were reported in 1934 had been vaccinated with Government lymph?

Sir K. WOOD: Two, Sir.

MALIGNANT TUMOURS.

Mr. GARRO-JONES: asked the Minister of Health whether he has any information concerning the treatment of malignant tumours as practised by Dr. Revelis and others in Paris hospitals; and whether the Ministry is co-operating in the tests of this method now being conducted in London?

Sir K. WOOD: Yes, Sir. I understand that inquiries as to whether there is a prima facie case for further investigation are proceeding, but I am advised that as yet this treatment has been practised for too short a period to justify any conclusion as to its value. As regards the last part of the question, I am not aware that any tests of the method are being conducted in London.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRAVELLING THEATRE (PROSECUTION).

Mr. DENVILLE: asked the Minister of Health whether he has considered the communications sent to him relative to the case of Horace Holloway, proprietor of a travelling theatre, who has been summoned by the Atherstone Rural District Council and punished by the local bench in respect of his travelling portable theatre; and will he make a statement on the action he proposes to take?

Sir K. WOOD: The reply to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. The matter does not appear to be one in which any action is open to me.

Oral Answers to Questions — MUNICIPALITIES (FINANCE).

Sir WALDRON SMITHERS: asked the Minister of Health whether he will issue a statement giving comparative details of the population and the rate-able value of local authorities of over 20,000 inhabitants, the amount of loans outstanding, with the interest and the dates of redemption, the amount of sinking funds, if any, and the amount of capital in revenue and non-revenue producing activities, with the totals of assets and liabilities for each authority and for the whole country, respectively?

Sir K. WOOD: The statement would relate to more than 500 authorities and its compilation, so far as information is

available, would involve an amount of time and labour which I should be reluctant for my Department to devote to this purpose. I will however, send my hon. Friend a statement showing the total outstanding loan debt of all local authorities in England and Wales at 31st March, 1934, the latest date for which figures are available.

Mr. MAXTON: Will the right hon. Gentleman send me a copy of that, too?

Sir K. WOOD: With the greatest pleasure.

Sir W. SMITHERS: Is it not of the utmost importance that the credit position of these local authorities should be known?

Sir K. WOOD: Perhaps the hon. Member will discuss the matter with me.

Oral Answers to Questions — LOCAL GOVERNMENT OFFICERS (SUPERANNUATION).

Sir ROBERT YOUNG: asked the Minister of Health what number of local authorities have adopted the Local Government and other Officers' Superannuation Act, 1922; and how many of these are county councils, county borough councils, and other local authorities?

Sir K. WOOD: The Local Government and Other Officers' Superannuation Act, 1922, had, at 1st December, 1935, been adopted by 52 county councils, 66 county borough councils and 479 other local authorities. In addition, the officers and servants of 457 local authorities have been admitted to participate in the benefits of the Act by means of agreements under Section 5 (3).

Sir R. YOUNG: Can the right hon. Gentleman exert his influence to increase the number of authorities adopting the Act?

Sir K. WOOD: I will do my best.

Mr. EDE: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider introducing legislation to make the application of this Act universal among local authorities in the country.

Sir K. WOOD: That is another matter.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL FINANCE.

DEFENCE FORCES.

Mr. HOLMES: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the money required for the reorganisation of the Navy and Air Force will be raised by way of loan or will be met from the ordinary national revenue?

The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Chamberlain): I am unable to make any statement on this matter at the present time. I would remind my hon. Friend that the proposals of the Government for making good deficiencies in the Defence Forces have not yet been formulated. Until that has been done, it would be premature to consider whether any part of the cost should be met by loan.

Mr. ALEXANDER: Is the Chancellor able to undertake now that he will give information to the House on the policy that is to be followed, when he is submitting the Supplementary Estimate to the House for the new destroyer programme, which is obviously part of the expansion?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: No, Sir.

Mr. DALTON: Does the right hon. Gentleman still believe that the Budget should be balanced?

Sir P. HARRIS: Has it not been the practice to pay for naval construction out of revenue and not out of loans.

NATIONAL INCOME.

Mr. D. GRENFELL: asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury the estimated income of all classes of the wage-earning population for 1930, 1931, 1932, 1933, and 1934, respectively, and the estimated aggregate national income for the same years?

The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. W. S. Morrison): I regret that no official estimates of the national income or the income of the wage-earning population are available.

Mr. THORNE: How is it that people outside have this information but the Government have not got it?

Oral Answers to Questions — GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS.

DICTAPHONE OPERATORS.

Mr. HOLLAND: asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury what means exist for ensuring that the dispute between the association concerned and the Treasury in regard to the payment of dictaphone operators in the Civil Service may be referred to arbitration?

Mr. W. S. MORRISON: There is no separate grade of dictaphone operator in the Civil Service, this duty being one of those falling to the copying typist grade. A difference between the Treasury and the two associations concerned as to the pay of this grade was referred to the arbitration of the Industrial Court only last year and I am aware of no reason for reopening the matter as settled by the court's award.

PENSION OFFICERS, GLASGOW.

Mr. LEONARD: asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether he is aware that pension officers in Glasgow administering old age pensions regulations have no telephones allocated to them for the performance of their duties; and whether he will take steps to rectify this matter both for the pension officers and for the convenience of inquirers?

Mr. W. S. MORRISON: I am aware that no telephones are allocated at present to the women pension officers at Glasgow, but the question whether the provision of such facilities for the conduct of old age pension business would be justified is under consideration.

Mr. LEONARD: Will the hon. and learned Gentleman bear in mind the difficulties which exist at the pesent time in connection with telephoning to these officials, which means that officials in the Customs and Excise offices have to waste time, and, in addition, that inquiries are being delayed; and will he hasten action in the matter?

Mr. MORRISON: I do not accept all the implications of the Member's question, but I can tell him that the matter is under consideration, and that all the relevant factors will be borne in mind.

Oral Answers to Questions — AGRICULTURE.

The MINISTER of AGRICULTURE (Mr. Elliot): I have been informed by the Milk Marketing Board that, after very full and careful consideration, they have come to the conclusion that it would be impracticable to arrange for local meetings of the board to hear cases of alleged contravention of the scheme. My hon. and gallant Friend will no doubt appreciate that if the board were to sit in the producer's locality on every occasion on which a breach of the scheme is alleged, considerable expenditure would be entailed and it would be impossible for the board to carry out their normal work. As regards cases which go to arbitration, the proceedings are held at a place determined by the arbitrator after consultation with the parties. As regards proceedings in the county court for recovery of penalties, the evidence is generally all available in London and it would add greatly to the costs of the proceedings if the cases were tried locally.

MILK MARKETING SCHEME.

Captain P. MACDONALD: asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he can arrange with the Milk Marketing Board for the trial and settlement of actions arising out of breaches of the scheme in the district where the farmer concerned is resident, in view of the expense to which such farmers are put if they have to attend in London?

Oral Answers to Questions — BARLEY.

Major BRAITHWAITE: asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he proposes to introduce any special measures for dealing with the position of the barley crop; and whether he contemplates any new arrangement with the brewers and maltsters to ensure a better price for malting barley?

Mr. ELLIOT: As my hon. and gallant Friend is doubtless aware, the Import Duties Advisory Committee have under consideration applications from the farming industry for an increase in the duty on imported foreign barley. Until the committee have reached a decision with regard to these applications I am not in a position to make a statement on the subject of barley policy.

Major BRAITHWAITE: Can the right hon. Gentleman inform the House of

when we may expect a decision on this matter?

Mr. ELLIOT: No, Sir, I am afraid I could not.

Lord APSLEY: Will the right hon. Gentleman press the Chancellor of the Exchequer for another penny off beer?

Oral Answers to Questions — STATISTICS.

Mr. D. GRENFELL: asked the Minister of Agriculture the value of home-grown agricultural products for the last five years, respectively, with the number of people employed in agriculture, including farmers, members of their families over 14 years, and agricultural employés?

Mr. ELLIOT: As the answer contains a number of figures I propose, with the hon. Member's permission, to circulate a statement in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following is the answer:

The estimated value of the output of agricultural and horticultural produce in England and Wales during the years 1930–31 to 1933–34 was:



£


1930–31
195,540,000


1931–32
182,590,000


1932–33
177,710,000


1933–34
194,630,000

NOTE.—(1) These estimates do not include glasshouse produce, flowers grown in the open and nursery stock, the combined output of which was valued in the Census year 1930–31 at £7,120,000.

(2) In the valuation of the wheat crop no account has been taken of the deficiency payments made to growers in England and Wales by the Wheat Commission. These payments amounted to about £4,269,000 in respect of the cereal year 1932–33 and £6,749,000 in 1933–34.

(3) Corresponding estimates for the year 1934–35 are not yet available.

The numbers of agricultural workers (excluding the occupier, his wife and domestic servants) in England and Wales as returned on the 4th June, 1931 to 1935 were:


1931
716,607


1932
697,481


1933
715,548


1934
678,972


1935
672,104



(provisional)

NOTE.—(a) Particulars of the number of farmers and others working on their own


account in the agricultural industry are not collected annually.

(b) In the Industry Tables published in connection with the Census of Population, 1931, persons returned as working on their own account or in a managerial capacity in the agricultural industry in England and Wales numbered 313,385.

Oral Answers to Questions — BEEF PRICES.

Mr. GRIMSTON: asked the Minister of Agriculture how average wholesale beef prices during November, 1935, including subsidy, compared with those ruling immediately prior to the granting of the beef subsidy?

Mr. ELLIOT: The average wholesale price of English first and second quality bullock and heifer beef in November, 1935, at four leading markets was 61s. 10d. per cwt., including the subsidy of 9s. 4d. per cwt. The corresponding price for the month of August, 1934, immediately before the Cattle Industry (Emergency Provisions) Act came into force, was 64s. 2d. per cwt. These two prices are, however, not comparable, seeing that prices of home-killed beef are lower in November than in August, owing to seasonal causes, and prices in August, 1934, were high compared with prices during the rest of that year.

Oral Answers to Questions — SURPLUS POTATOES (SALE IN SPECIAL AREAS).

Mr. JOHNSTON: asked the Minister of Agriculture whether his attention has been called to the report of the Potato Marketing Board upon the experiment in the sale of 181 tons of surplus potatoes at the reduced price of 4d. per stone to the unemployed in Bishop Auckland; and whether, as the experiment has demonstrated the fact that there is a demand for potatoes which can be increased by 64 per cent. among the poor, and that it is possible for the people in the special areas to eat the food surpluses of the market, he can say why this scheme is not being rapidly developed in other special areas?

Mr. ELLIOT: As I indicated in my reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Lennox-Boyd) on 5th December, I have read with interest the report of the Potato Marketing Board on the experiment they carried out in the distribution of potatoes at specially low prices to the unemployed at Bishop Auckland. The Board have been giving

consideration to certain tentative proposals for further experiments designed to test the effect on consumption of a reduction in price, but I understand that having regard to the supply position, the Board do not consider the present season an opportune one for further experiments of this kind.

Mr. HARDIE: Seeing that the right hon. Gentleman has read this report and has admitted that it is good, will he be in favour now of restricting the catching of fish and trying to apply the same method of getting cheap fish along with potatoes, which will constitute a good meal?

Mr. J. J. DAVIDSON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the fact that the farmers in the Inverness district have been penalised from distributing freely small unmarketable potatoes to the poor of that district?

Mr. ELLIOT: I should require notice of that question.

Mr. DAVIDSON: Oh no, you know about it.

Oral Answers to Questions — SURPLUS MILK.

Mr. JOHNSTON: asked the Minister of Agriculture whether, seeing that the proportion of the State subsidy for the maintenance of the price of milk which has been expended in the subsidy of British produced condensed milk for export has reached the figure of £50,000, he will consider the drafting of new regulations providing that milk surplus to ordinary market requirements will in future be disposed of in bulk to hospitals, infirmaries, and local authority clinics at reduced prices, with a view to the improvement in public health?

Mr. ELLIOT: The subsidy to which the hon. Member refers is, as he is no doubt aware, payable under Section 1 of the Milk Act, 1934, which made provision for payments from the Exchequer in respect of all milk sold for manufacture at a price less than the cheese milk price as defined in the Act. The proposal put forward would involve fresh legislation, and while I am always glad to receive any suggestions with regard to future policy, I cannot undertake to consider the introduction of legislation to amend provisions which, under the existing Statute, expire on 31st March next.

Mr. JOHNSTON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Scottish chairman of the Milk Marketing Board has declared that his board is perfectly willing now to supply surplus milk to local authorities at cheap prices, but that he is forbidden under the terms of the Order to which the right hon. Gentleman referred?.

Mr. ELLIOT: I would suggest that any question referring to the Scottish Milk Marketing Board should be addressed to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland.

Mr. JOHNSTON: But does that Order not apply to both England and Scotland?

Mr. ELLIOT: Clearly I should require notice of that question.

Oral Answers to Questions — BACON FACTORIES.

Mr. TURTON: asked the Minister of Agriculture how many applications for a licence for new factories have been received by the Bacon Development Board; how many of these applications are for factories with a maximum capacity of more than 1,000 pigs per week; and how many are for factories with a maximum capacity of less than 250 pigs per week?

Mr. ELLIOT: The Bacon Development Board have received 26 applications for a licence for new factories; eight of these were in respect of factories with a maximum capacity of more than 1,000 pigs per week and 11 in respect of factories with a maximum capacity of less then 250 pigs per week.

Mr. TURTON: Can my right hon. Friend tell the House if it is true that every one of those applications has been refused?

Mr. ELLIOT: No, I could not say that.

Mr. de ROTHSCHILD: How many have been refused?

Mr. TURTON: asked the Minister of Agriculture how many bacon factories there are in this country; how many of these factories have a maximum capacity of more than 1,000 pigs per week; and how many of them have a maximum capacity of less than 250 pigs per week?

Mr. ELLIOT: I regret that I am not in possession of the information which by hon. Friend desires. I understand

that the Bacon Development Board are obtaining particulars of the capacity of bacon factories in Great Britain, but that their inquiries have not yet been completed.

Oral Answers to Questions — ROYAL COMMISSION ON TITHES.

Mr. HOLMES: asked the Minister of Agriculture whether the report of the Royal Commission on Tithes contains any recommendation for issuing tithe bonds to the present tithe owners in exchange for the title deeds of their tithe; whether the Government are in favour of such a recommendation; what amount of money will be involved; and what will be the terms of issue?

Mr. ELLIOT: I would ask my hon. Friend to await the publication of the Commission's report and the statement of Government's policy in regard thereto.

Mr. HOLMES: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether, in order that Members of the House may avoid the imputation of disclosing the recommendations of a Royal Commission by means of questions in this House he will consider the advisability of publishing the report forthwith, before the Government have come to their conclusions upon it?

Mr. ELLIOT: I am afraid I cannot add anything to the answer previously given.

Mr. ACLAND: Can the right hon. Gentleman explain how the publication of the report can, in any way, delay the preparation of the policy of the Government?

Major COLFOX: How soon may we expect publication?

Oral Answers to Questions — ORDNANCE SURVEY.

Colonel GOODMAN: asked the Minister of Agriculture whether it is proposed to adopt the metre as the unit of measurement in the new edition of the maps of the Ordnance Survey.

Mr. ELLIOT: No decision has been taken to introduce the metre as a unit of measurement in Ordnance Survey maps. The question is among those to be examined by the Departmental Committee, which is at present considering the future programme of the Ordnance Survey Department.

Colonel GOODMAN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Director-General of the Ordnance Survey has already expressed an opinion favourable to this proposal?

Mr. ELLIOT: No decision has been made. The matter is being reviewed by the Committee.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.

Mr. ATTLEE: May I ask the Prime Minister whether he will say what the business will be for next week?

The PRIME MINISTER: Monday, 16th December: Second Reading, Unemployment Assistance (Temporary Provisions) Bill; Second Reading, Government of India (Reprinting) Bill; Committee stage, Railways (Agreement) Bill; concluding stages, Public Works Loans Bill; Committee stage, Pensions (Governors of Dominions, etc.) Money Resolution; and consideration of Import Duties Orders Nos. 31 and 35, and of the Irish Free State (Special Duties) Order.
Tuesday: Third Reading, Railways (Agreement) Bill; concluding stages, Government of India (Reprinting) Bill; Second Reading, Employment of Women and Young Persons Bill; Amendments to the Pigs Marketing Scheme; Commitee stage, Unemployment Assistance (Temporary Provisions) Bill.
Wednesday, Private Members' Motions.
The business for Thursday will be announced later, and on any day, if there is time, other Orders may be taken.
If all the necessary Government business has been disposed of, we hope to take the Motion for the Christmas Adjournment on Friday, 20th December.

Mr. ATTLEE: Will Thursday be available for the Debate on the foreign situation which the right hon. Gentleman said may be given before the House rises?

The PRIME MINISTER: We shall be perfectly prepared to consider that. I will give no definite pledge at the moment, but we have that in mind, and I have not as yet announced any business for Thursday.

Mr. ATTLEE: Will papers be available before that date?

The PRIME MINISTER: I will certainly see what papers, if any, can be made available, but I cannot say without notice what papers may be. I do not know, but I will do the best I can.

Mr. ATTLEE: Is it possible for the right hon. Gentleman, for the convenience of the House, to tell us now on what date it is proposed to return after the Christmas Recess?

The PRIME MINISTER: No; I will make an announcement next week, but I am afraid I could not say to-day.

Mr. BUCHANAN: In view of the fact that the Debate on the Motion for the Adjournment is likely to be taken up with foreign affairs, will the right hon. Gentleman consider, in the limited time at his disposal, giving the House some chance to debate the present state of the law with regard to the administration of transitional benefit, in view of the fact that there is great feeling about the departure from the stand-still arrangement and other arrangements now applied to the unemployed? Will he not consider giving some time to discuss what is admitted to have been discussed insufficiently already, namely, the whole question of the administration of transitional benefit?

The PRIME MINISTER: I am sure the hon. Member and the House will realise how little time there has been before Christmas, and how the time is necessarily interfered with by matters of such very first-rate importance as the one that has been raised by the Leader of the Opposition. There will, of course, be time for such a discussion as the hon. Member desires on the Motion for the Adjournment. There will be ample time for discussion then, but I could not hold out any hope that on the three days left there would be time.

Mr. MAXTON: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that he has just announced that we shall be rising on the 20th instant, and that it would be possible for this House to get up the day before Christmas? He has another two days at his disposal before Christmas, therefore, and will he consider bringing the House back on the 23rd and 24th December so that other things that ought


to be ventilated before we go for our Christmas holidays shall have an opportunity of being ventilated?

The PRIME MINISTER: Christmas is a movable feast according to the day of the week on which it comes. When Christmas comes in the middle of the week, I think His Majesty's faithful Commons may share with many of His Majesty's other subjects certain advantages that accrue from that fact.

Mr. TINKER: In view of what might happen on Wednesday next, when the miners meet, will the right hon. Gentle-

man agree not to make the proposed Adjournment on Friday definite?

The PRIME MINISTER: Of course, we shall have regard to all these matters. I should like to give expression to my own opinion, which is that I trust that it will not be necessary to make any change.

Motion made, and Question put,
That the Proceedings on Government Business be exempted, at this day's Sitting, from the provisions of the Standing Order (Sittings of the House)."—[The Prime Minister.]

The House divided: Ayes, 231; Noes, 117.

Division No. 10.]
AYES.
[3.50 p.m.


Agnew, Lieut.-Comdr. P. G.
Crowder, J. F. E.
Hope, Captain Hon. A. O. J.


Allen, Lt.-Col. J. Sandeman (B'kn'hd)
Davies, Major G. F. (Yeovil)
Hopkinson, A.


Anderson, Sir A. Garrett (C. of Ldn.)
Davison, Sir W. H.
Horsbrugh, Florence


Apsley, Lord
Denman, Hon. R. D.
Howitt, Dr. A. B.


Aske, Sir R. W.
Denville, A.
Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hack., N.)


Assheton, R.
Despencer-Robertson, Major J. A. F.
Hume, Sir G. H.


Astor, Han. W. W. (Fulham, E.)
Dorman-Smith, Major R. H.
James, Wing-Commander A. W.


Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley
Dower, Capt. A. V. G.
Joel, D. J. B.


Barclay-Harvey, C. M.
Duckworth, W. R. (Moss Side)
Kerr, H. W. (Oldham)


Barrie, Sir C. C.
Dugdale, Major T. L.
Knox, Major-General Sir A. W. F.


Baxter, A. Beverley
Duggan, H. J.
Law, R. K. (Hull, S. W.)


Beauchamp, Sir B. C.
Duncan, J. A. L.
Leckie, J. A.


Beaumont, Hon. R. E. B. (Portsm'n)
Dunglass, Lord
Leech, Dr. J. W.


Beit, Sir A. L.
Dunne, P. R. R.
Lees-Jones, J.


Bernays, R. H.
De la Bère, R.
Leighton, Major B. E. P.


Birchall, Sir J. D.
Eckersley, P. T.
Lennox-Boyd, A. T. L.


Blair, Sir R.
Edge, Sir W.
Levy, T.


Blindall, J.
Elliot, Rt. Hon. W. E.
Llewellin, Lieut.-Col. J. J.


Boothby, R. J. G.
Ellis, Sir G.
Lloyd, G. W.


Borodale, Viscount
Elmley, Viscount
Loder, Captain Hon. J. de V.


Bower, Comdr. R. T.
Emery, J. F.
Mabane, W. (Huddersfield)


Boyce, H. Leslie
Emmott, C. E. G. C.
MacAndrew, Lt.-Col. Sir C. G.


Briscoe, Capt. R. G.
Emrys-Evans, P. V.
M'Connell, Sir J.


Brocklebank, C. E. R.
Entwistle, C. F.
Macdonald, Capt. P. (Isle of Wight)


Brown, Rt. Hon. E. (Leith)
Errington, E.
McKie, J. H.


Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C. (Newbury)
Evans, Capt. A. (Cardiff, S.)
Macmillan, H. (Stockton-on-Tees)


Browne, A. C. (Belfast, W.)
Everard, W. L.
Macnamara, Capt. J. R. J.


Bull, B. B.
Fildes, Sir H.
Macquisten, F. A.


Bullock, Capt. M.
Fleming, E. L.
Magnay, T.


Burghley, Lord
Fox, Sir G. W. G.
Makins, Brig.-Gen. E.


Burgin, Dr. E. L.
Fraser, Capt. Sir I.
Margessan, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. D. R.


Butler, R. A.
Freemantle, Sir F. E.
Maxwell, S. A.


Butt, Sir A.
Furness, S. N.
Mayhew, Lt.-Col. J.


Campbell, Sir E. T.
Ganzoni, Sir J.
Meller, Sir R. J. (Mitcham)


Cartland, J. R. H.
Gledhill, G.
Mellor, Sir J. S. P. (Tamworth)


Carver, Major W. H.
Gluckstein, L. H.
Mills, Major J. D. (New Forest)


Cary, R. A.
Goldie, N. B.
Mitchell, H. (Brentford and Chiswick)


Cautley, Sir H. S.
Goodman, Col. A. W.
Mitchell, Sir W. Lane (Streatham)


Cayzer, Sir C. W. (City of Chester)
Gower, Sir R. V.
Morris-Jones, Dr. J. H.


Cayzer, Sir H. R. (Portsmouth, S.)
Graham Captain A. C. (Wirral)
Morrison, W. S. (Cirencester)


Cazalet, Capt. V. A. (Chippenham)
Granville, E. L.
Muirhead, Lt.-Col. A. J.


Chair, S. S. de
Grattan-Doyle, Sir N.
Munro, P. M.


Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. N. (Edgb't'n)
Gridley, Sir A. B.
Neven-Spence, Maj. B. H.


Channon, H.
Grimston, R. V.
Orr-Ewing, I. L.


Chapman, A. (Rutherglen)
Guest, Maj. Hon. O. (C'mb'rw'll, N. W.)
Palmer, G. E. H.


Chapman, Sir S. (Edinburgh, S.)
Guinness, T. L. E. B.
Peake, O.


Chorlton, A. E. L.
Gunston, Capt. D. W.
Percy, Rt. Hon. Lord E.


Clarke, F. E.
Guy, J. C. M.
Perkins, W. R. D.


Clydesdale, Marquess of
Hamilton, Sir G. C.
Peters, Dr. S. J.


Cobb, Sir C. S.
Hanbury, Sir C.
Petherick, M.


Colfox, Major W. P.
Hannah, I. C.
Pilkington, R.


Collins, Rt. Hon. Sir G. P.
Hannon, P. J. H.
Plugge, L. F.


Colville, Lt.-Col. D. J.
Hartington, Marquess of
Ponsonby, Col. C. E.


Cooke, J. D. (Hammersmith, S.)
Harvey, G.
Purbrick, R.


Cooper, Rt. Hn. A. Duff (W'st'r S. G'gs)
Heilgers, Captain F. F. A.
Ramsay, Captain A. H. M.


Cooper, Rt. Hn. T. M. (E'nburgh, W.)
Hepburn, P. G. T. Buchan
Ramsbotham, H.


Craven-Ellis, W.
Herbert, A. P. (Oxford U.)
Rathbone, Eleanor (English Univ's.)


Crooke, J. S.
Herbert, Major J. A. (Monmouth)
Rathbone, J. R. (Bodmin)


Crookshank, Capt. H. F. C.
Holdsworth, H.
Rayner, Major R. H.


Crossley, A. C.
Holmes, J. S.
Reed, A. C. (Exeter)




Reid, D. D. (Down)
Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)
Train, J.


Reid, W. Allan (Derby)
Southby, Comdr. A. R. J.
Tree, A. R. L. F.


Rickards, G. W. (Skipton)
Spender-Clay Lt.-Cl. Rt. Hn. H. H.
Tryon, Major Rt. Hon. G. C.


Ross Taylor, W. (Woodbridge)
Spens, W. P.
Tufnell, Lieut.-Com. R. L.


Rowlands, G.
Stanley, Rt. Hon. Lord (Fylde)
Turton, R. H.


Russell, A. West (Tynemouth)
Stewart, William J. (Belfast, S.)
Wakefield, W. W.


Salmon, Sir I.
Storey, S.
Walker-Smith, Sir J.


Sandys, E. D.
Stourton, Hon. J. J.
Wallace, Captain Euan


Sassoon, Rt. Hon. Sir P.
Strickland, Captain W. F.
Warrender, Sir V.


Savery, Servington
Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)
Waterhouse, Captain C.


Scott, Lord William
Sutcliffe, H.
Wedderburn, H. J. S.


Selley, H. R.
Tasker, Sir R. I.
Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel G.


Shaw, Captain W. T. (Forfar)
Tate, Mavis C.
Womersley, Sir W. J.


Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir J. A.
Taylor, C. S. (Eastbourne)
Wood, Rt. Hon. Sir Kingsley


Smiles, Lieut.-Colonel Sir W. D.
Thomas, Rt. Hon. J. H. (Derby)
Young, A. S. L. (Partick)


Smith, Sir R. W. (Aberdeen)
Thomas, J. P. L. (Hereford)



Smithers, Sir W.
Thomson, Sir J. D. W.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Somervell, Sir D. B. (Crewe)
Touche, G. C.
Sir George Penny and Lieut.-Colonel




Sir A. Lambert Ward.




NOES.


Acland, Rt. Hon. Sir F. Dyke
Henderson, T. (Tradeston)
Pethick-Lawrence, F. W.


Acland, R. T. D. (Barnstaple)
Holland, A.
Potts, J.


Adams, D. (Consett)
Hollins, A.
Price, M. P.


Adams, D. M. (Poplar, S.)
Hopkin, D.
Quibell, J. D.


Alexander, Rt. Hon. A. V. (H'lsbr.)
Jagger, J.
Ritson, J.


Anderson, F. (Whitehaven)
Jenkins, A. (Pontypool)
Roberts, W. (Cumberland, N.)


Attlee, Rt. Hon. C. R.
Jenkins, Sir W. (Neath)
Robinson, W. A. (St. Helens)


Batey, J.
Johnston, Rt. Hon. T.
Rothschild, J. A. de


Benson, G.
Jones, A. C. (Shipley)
Rowson, G.


Bevan, A.
Jones, J. J. (Silvertown)
Salter, Dr. A.


Brown, C. (Mansfield)
Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)
Sanders, W. S.


Buchanan, G.
Kelly, W. T.
Seely, Sir H. M.


Burke, W. A.
Kennedy, Rt. Hon. T.
Sexton, T. M.


Chater, D.
Kirby, B. V.
Shinwell, E.


Clynes, Rt. Hon. J. R.
Kirkwood, D.
Silverman, S. S.


Daggar, G.
Leach, W.
Smith, Ben (Rotherhithe)


Dalton, H.
Lee, F.
Smith, E. (Stoke)


Davidson, J. J. (Maryhill)
Leonard, W.
Smith, Rt. Hon. H. B. Lees- (K'ly)


Davies, D. L. (Pontypridd)
Leslie, J. R.
Smith, T. (Normanton)


Davies, R. J. (Westhoughton)
Logan, D. G.
Stephen, C.


Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)
Lunn, W.
Stewart, W. J. (H'ght'n-le-Sp'ng)


Day, H.
McGhee, H. G.
Strauss, G. R. (Lambeth, N.)


Dobbie, W.
McGovern, J.
Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)


Dunn, E. (Rother Valley)
McLaren, A.
Thorne, W.


Ede, J. C.
Maclean, N.
Thurtle, E.


Edwards, A. (Middlesbrough E.)
MacMillan, M. (Western Isles)
Tinker, J. J.


Fletcher, Lt.-Comdr. R. T. H.
MacNeill, Weir, L.
Viant, S. P.


Frankel, D.
Mander, G. le M.
Walkden, A. G.


Gallacher, W.
Marklew, E.
Walker, J.


Gardner, B. W.
Marshall, F.
Watkins, F. C.


Garro-Jones, G. M.
Maxton, J.
Watson, W. McL.


George, Major G. Lloyd (Pembroke)
Messer, F.
Wedgwood, Rt. Hon. J. C.


George, Megan Lloyd (Anglesey)
Milner, Major J.
White, H. Graham


Gibbins, J.
Montague, F.
Whiteley, W.


Greenwood, Rt. Hon. A.
Morrison, Rt. Hn. H. (Ha'kn'y, S.)
Williams, E. J. (Ogmore)


Grenfell, D. R.
Oliver, G. H.
Woods, G. S. (Finsbury)


Griffiths, G. A. (Hemsworth)
Owen, Major G.
Young, Sir R. (Newton)


Hall, J. H. (Whitechapel)
Paling, W.



Hardie, G. D.
Parker, H. J. H.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Harris, Sir P. A.
Parkinson, J. A.
Mr. Mathers and Mr. Groves.


Bill read a Second time.

MEMORIAL TO ADMIRAL OF THE FLEET EARL JELLICOE.

The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Baldwin): I beg to move:
That this House will, To-morrow, resolve itself into a Committee to consider an humble Address to His Majesty, praying that His Majesty will give directions that a monument be erected at the public charge to the memory of the late Admiral of the Fleet Earl Jellicoe, as an expression of the admiration of this House for his illustrious naval career and its gratitude for his devoted services to the State.
I think it might be for the convenience of those who have not been long in the

House if I remind them, as I reminded Members on that occasion six years ago when I moved a similar Resolution with regard to Lord Haig, of what it is that this Resolution effects. In effect the House pledges itself to honour the Estimate which will in due course be presented for the work sanctioned by the House under the Resolution. When that Estimate is presented the full amount involved will be shown to the House, and according to precedent the figure that comes in the Estimate will be one somewhere in the neighbourhood of £6,000; it may be rather more or it may be rather less.
With those preliminary words on business I would desire to take a short time this afternoon in moving this Motion and justifying it to the House and to the country. As I observed six years ago, these occasions are no occasion for estimating or attempting to estimate the ultimate position which may be held by the great man whose memory we desire to perpetuate. As I have often said, whether a man be a soldier or a sailor or a statesman the position he may ultimately occupy in the view of historians or in the regard of his countrymen is not one which can be estimated even approximately in his lifetime. But it is the duty of each generation, surely, to pay its tribute to those who, in their view and so far as they are able to judge, may deserve well of the State; and such a one—I say it without fear of contradiction as I said it of Lord Haig—was Lord Jellicoe.
Again, this is not the occasion to dwell at any length on his professional career, beyond saying that his whole life, viewed in the light of later events, seemed to have been a fitting preparation for what he had to do and what he accomplished. His whole life was devoted to the service of his profession, and for that service he kept both body and mind in training and in subjection, so that when the time came and at whatever age it might find him he at any rate, so far as all he could do, would be ready to respond to the call, and would respond
It is not for me to estimate how much that modern Navy, as it was when the Great War began, owed in its technical development and its efficiency to Lord Jellicoe and to the men with whom he worked. The country at large knew little of what went on in those pre-War days in the Services. Suffice it for us to remember that Lord Jellicoe was working long with Lord Fisher on those reforms both in materiel and in personnel which left so strong and deep a mark upon the senior Service. Suffice it for us to remember that Lord Jellicoe was working with Sir Percy Scott at the time when they were attempting to concentrate so much of the effort of the scientific Navy to improving the gunnery of the whole Service. He was with Sir Percy Scott at the time of the introduction of director firing, and he himself in the natural course of his duties raised the Atlantic Fleet three years before the War from the lowest place to the highest place in

the Navy in its gunnery, and he performed the same service a year later to the Battle Squadron of the Home Fleet.
Then came the Great War. Most of us have hardly yet begun to realise how infinitely remote the problems of that War were from the Napoleonic wars whose history was so familiar to us, whose romantic history must have appealed to all of us older men in the days of our youth. The kind of work that was done in the Napoleonic times by so many ships and by fleets was work that in the Great War fell much more to smaller portions of the Fleet and to the smaller ships. The great task of the Commander-in-Chief was to take over, as he did, the whole fleets of the Empire and to weld them together into one great homogeneous unit, on which the whole fate of the Empire and of these islands depended for four years. He obtained and maintained the undisputed command of the sea before, during and after the Battle of Jutland. His was the controlling and directing mind of the greatest assembly of naval power that the world has ever seen, and very possibly that the world will ever see. The trust reposed in him was a tremendous trust. The responsibility was perhaps the greatest single responsibility on any man in the War. All of us who were at home at that time were sheltered behind the Grand Fleet, and we were able to go on with our work as no other people in Europe were, without any fear or apprehensions lest our soil might be the soil on which the invader fought our own people. We had our cares, our sorrows, our troubles, and from that anxiety, from which no people in Europe was free, we were free, and we were free because of the Grand Fleet.
It was a Grand Fleet which, in spite of innumerable difficulties and innumerable perils, succeeded in keeping this country fed, and the measure of these things is the measure of the burden that lay upon the shoulders of the man who was in command of that Fleet. We ask much more of our seamen in our island home than is asked of their seamen by any other country in the world, and that which we asked was given to us, and the trust we reposed in our seamen and in their great leader was justified from the first day of the War until the Armistice. In him we are honouring a worthy successor of the great and immortal line of British seamen.
Now let me remind you, if you have forgotten it—it leads me naturally to what I want to say about the man—that when the Lord Mayor of London went up in his official capacity to visit the Grand Fleet on behalf of the citizens of London he made an observation which I would like to bring back to the recollection of the House. He said that he went up in what he described as one of the grimmer phases of the War, and he added:
Fogs and rough seas surrounded our physical presence, but Jellicoe himself was a beacon of hope and confidence.
Those were great words to write of any man at that time, and I would ask you to remember with them some words which I read in a letter by a distinguished Naval officer who was a midshipman in the Fleet in 1916. He wrote this:
My lasting impression is of the personal influence diffused by the Commander-in-Chief. None of us had ever spoken to him; many of us had never seen him; but so closely had he identified himself with the day-to-day duties of every man in the Fleet that we all felt as if we were serving in the Flagship. Jellicoe was the Grand Fleet.
That is an amazing thing for a lad to say. How does it come about? No one can explain it. It is that God-given gift of personality which is a form of manifestation of genius and is inexplicable, for it cannot be taught by book learning, it cannot be acquired merely by a desire to obtain it. A man has it or he has not; and that great gift was Jellicoe's. Perhaps it may help to explain it when I remind the House that Jellicoe was a man of deep religious conviction. He was a man of wonderful understanding of the human heart. He was kindly and thoughtful to everyone of every kind, in every rank, with whom he was brought into contact, and he had in full measure that gift of inspiring with affection all who worked with him and for him, and with that, and an absolutely noncomitant part of it, a flawless sincerity and complete selflessness. He was loved by every officer and man who served with him.
There is only one observation I would make in conclusion. It has often seemed, in reading history, that perhaps the happiest death, and the death that helps to secure immortality for a man, is the death that comes to him in the moment of his greatest achievement. Such were the deaths of Wolfe and of

Nelson in the hour of victory, and no less famous the death of Richard Grenville in the hour of defeat, and the names of those men will live as long as stories of human achievement and chivalry and daring can stir the human heart. But for Haig and for Jellicoe it was reserved to see many years of life when the peak of their achievement was passed, and surely, if ever, those are the testing years of character. With neither of those men, in those last years, was there the slightest deviation from the lives they had always led, lives in which duty always came first, the duty that lay to hand.
Jellicoe, as Haig, passed from one of the most prominent positions in the whole world to the position of a private citizen. From neither of them did you ever hear a word of criticism or reproach of anything connected with themselves, their own careers, what people said about them. They had played their part, and they were content to leave history to judge. They devoted themselves as long as they had strength to the service of the men who had worked side by side with them through those years of the War, and to both of them came a merciful and peaceful end. They were allowed some years of peace, but years in which they enjoyed health to work. Each was called away in the full possession of his powers after a short and comparatively painless illness. And so, in our controversial life in politics, in the strenuous work of trying to govern successfully and happily our common country, it is well, I think, to turn aside on such an occasion as this, if it be only for a moment, that we may think of Lord Jellicoe and all that he stood for to the nation, and all that he stands for as an example to every man that loves his country, a man whose single aim through life was the public service and the service of his fellow men and who, throughout his life, worked with a fine resolution and with a lovely humanity, and whose passing we now mourn. A great sailor, Sir, and a great man.

Mr. ATTLEE: I rise to associate myself and my colleagues on this side of the House with the Motion which has been so very eloquently moved by the Prime Minister. There is little, indeed, to be added to what the right hon. Gentleman has said. Most of us of a


younger generation never had perhaps the privilege of meeting Lord Jellicoe, though we could view him from afar as a lonely figure in the War holding a supreme responsibility. Since the War we have known him as one of the great survivors of that struggle, as one quietly taking his place in public life and not figuring in public controversy. The impression that one has, first of all, of Lord Jellicoe is, I think, of a man who had to stand up to a most tremendous responsibility, and a man who discharged that responsibility, and always preserved the highest possible standards of a British sailor. It is not for us, as the Prime Minister has said, to estimate all his qualities. Those who know tell me that, quite apart from that gift of controlling a great fleet in war, he was remarkable for the amazing ability with which he organised all that was behind that fleet. Sometimes people are apt to think of a fleet as something that can be assembled ready to fight, and do not remember the immense amount of careful organisation that lies behind. In that Jellicoe was, I believe, supreme. He was animated by a great sense of duty, and I believe the other quality which endeared him so much to all who knew him was his great modesty. He spas a man who never put himself forward, who never thought of himself, and I believe he would think of this memorial which we now propose less as a tribute to himself as an individual than to himself as typifying the spirit of the officers and men of the Fleet, and I think that in his sense of duty and his selflessness, he stands there as a typical embodiment of the very best qualities of the British sailor.

Sir FRANCIS ACLAND: In the absence of my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Sir A. Sinclair) owing to illness, it is a privilege for me to support the Motion now before the House on behalf of my hon. Friends. Lord Jellicoe has, I think, been described as a great sailor, a great gentleman and a great Christian. Any of us would surely be well content if only one of those three things could truly be said of him after his death, for one of them alone would be a worthy epitaph, but when all three of them apply to the same man, as I firmly believe they do to Lord Jellicoe, that is so rare and presents

so splendid a picture of what a man of our race can attain, that we should delight to honour him. I wholeheartedly support the Motion.

Question put, and agreed to nemine contradicente.

Resolved,
That this House will, To-morrow, resolve itself into a Committee to consider an humble Address to His Majesty, praying that His Majesty will give directions that a monument be erected at the public charge to the memory of the late Admiral of the Fleet Earl Jellicoe, as an expression of the admiration of this House for his illustrious naval career and its gratitude for his devoted services to the State.

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.

CONSOLIDATION BILLS.

That they communicate that they have come to the following Resolution, namely: "That it is desirable that all Consolidation Bills in the present Session be referred to a Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament."

Orders of the Day — RAILWAYS (AGREEMENT) [MONEY].

Resolution reported,
That, with a view to enabling effect to be given to an agreement made on the thirtieth day of November, nineteen hundred and thirty-five, between the Treasury, the Great Western Railway Company, the London Midland and Scottish Railway Company, the London and North Eastern Railway Company, and the Southern Railway Company, a copy whereof was laid before this House on the third day of December, nineteen hundred and thirty-five, it is expedient—
(a) to authorise the Treasury to guarantee the payment of the principal and interest of securities to be issued by the company to be formed in pursuance of Clause 3 of the said agreement:
Provided that the amount of the principal of the securities to be so guaranteed shall not in the aggregate exceed an amount sufficient to raise twenty-six million five hundred thousand pounds;
(b) to authorise the issue out of the Consolidated Fund of any sums required for fulfilling the said guarantee and the payment into the Exchequer of any moneys received by way of repayment of any sums SQ issued;
(c) to exempt the said agreement and other agreements mentioned in paragraph (b) of Clause 2 of the said agreement from stamp duty;
(d) to make certain provisions ancillary to the matters aforesaid.

Bill ordered to be brought in upon the said Resolution by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Hore-Belisha and Mr. W. S. Morrison.

Orders of the Day — RAILWAYS (AGREEMENT) BILL.

"To authorise the Treasury to guarantee securities issued in accordance with a certain agreement made on the thirtieth day of November, nineteen hundred and thirty-five, and to exempt the said agreement and certain other agreements from stamp duty," presented accordingly, and read the First time; to be read a Second time To-morrow, and to be printed. [Bill 12.]

Orders of the Day — PUBLIC WORKS LOANS BILL.

Order for Second Reading read.

4.27 p.m.

The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. W. S. Morrison): I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
I am aware that there are on the Order Paper certain items of more general interest to hon. Members than this Bill, which provides for the continuance of one of the organs of the State which serves a well recognised and generally useful purpose, so I will try to confine my observations to the minimum in length, and invite hon. Members who wish to raise any points on the very wide area which this Bill necessarily covers to put those points to me later or on the appropriate Committee stage. Hon. Members are acquainted with the general idea of the Local Loans Fund, which was set up by the National Debt (Local Loans) Act, 1887, with Commissioners empowered to lend money for certain purposes. Generally speaking, the loans are made to local authorities—the smaller local authorities. If I might try to compress the function of the Board into a phrase I would say that the Board is intended to make loans to those smaller local authorities who, speaking generally, would find it difficult to come into the money market for small loans. The larger local authorities raising larger sums can look after themselves but there are always obstacles to smaller local authorities with a low rateable value, because of the expenses of promotion, under-writing and so on, in the way of obtaining a relatively small sum. This is the purpose that the Local Loans Board was intended to fill.
The general role of the Board is to make loans to local authorities whose rateable value is not more than £200,000 or in Scotland £250,000. There is no discrimination there against Scotland. The difference is due simply to the fact that the valuation in Scotland is a gross one whereas in England it is a nett one. To the principle that the Board looks at the rateable value of the authority before making a loan there are numerous exceptions into which I need not go at this moment, unless any hon. Member requires information on a particular point in that connection. In particular, a local authority can borrow from the Local Loans Fund up to one-half of the gross proceeds of the sales of savings certificates in their area in the twelve months preceding the month in which the loan is made, regardless of the rateable value. There are other exceptions imposed by statute which enable the fund to lend money without that qualification for a


purpose like the acquisition of small dwellings, certain educational and housing purposes and matters of that sort.
As to the finance of the scheme, it is sufficient to say that the money is found by the Board by the issue of local loans stock, of which there is a very large amount in existence. This stock was issued at 3 per cent. in the days when the Board was first constituted, and when 3 per cent. was considered the ordinary yield. It is all 3 per cent. stock. In the Finance Act, 1935, power was taken by the Government, the Treasury and the Board to modify this rate in order to try to take advantage when an opportunity presented itself of the very low rates of interest now prevailing, and certain provisions of the Bill are concerned with that matter. Having given that general description of what the fund does and how it is financed I might invite hon. Members to look at the Clauses.
Clause 1 sets out the names of the Commissioners. That is necessary in this case because the Commissioners are appointed for five years. The present Commissioners were appointed in 1930 and hon. Members will see from the Clause that their period of office expires five years from 1st April, 1931. The Clause is necessary to secure their reestablishment as Public Works Loan Commissioners. The Commissioners receive no emolument for their services. They are all gentlemen of distinction and experience who can advise as to the investment of money that comes in, and as to the practicability of any proposals for loans that are made to them.
Clause 2 states the amount which the National Debt Commissioners can issue for the purpose of loans by the Public Works Loans Commissioners, not exceeding £20,000,000. It might not be clear to the House that that maximum exists only until another Bill of this character is brought before us. The figure does not remain for all time, but is thought at the present time to be a proper sum, having regard to the calls likely to be made. Clause 3 deals with a feature of nearly every borrowing and lending institution, in which you sometimes have bad debts. The original Act setting up the Commissioners, in 1887, provided that loans should be written off as assets of the fund and hon. Members will see

in the Schedule the loans which are there proposed to be written off. That does not mean that the debtors are relieved of liability, but that the debts are taken over by the Exchequer. It means that the fund can no longer show as assets the sums due from the debtors and mentioned in the Schedule, but the debtors still remain liable to the Exchequer, and the accounts of the fund are corrected to that extent. The assets which are irrecoverable debts do not figure as assets.
It is sometimes the case that it is necessary to go a little further and actually to remit a debt altogether. That is to say that the debt becomes no longer due either to the Exchequer or to the fund. There is one of these in the Bill, the case of Eyemouth Harbour. The circumstances are set out in the Financial Memorandum attached to the Bill. The security for the loan in this case was the surplus herring brand fees mentioned in the Schedule, but we are advised that the hope of obtaining any of those surplus herring brand fees is so remote as practically to have disappeared altogether. Clause 4 remits this debt. Those debts covered by Clause 3 are no longer to be shown in the assets of the fund, but are due to the Exchequer.
I come to Clause 5, which hon. Members might think is a very formidable one. It is a matter of some complication, and it is better described in general terms as an attempt to simplify the accounting of the Fund. Perhaps I may try to indicate briefly what the Clause does and how the procedure arose. The original Act of 1897 provided that if the income account of the Fund showed a surplus, that surplus should be carried to a separate account to be applied as Parliament might direct; or, if there were no direction, the money might be reinvested, or accumulated and used as material for fresh advances by the Fund. The purpose of that in 1887 was that Parliament should keep in suspense any surplus income that came into the Fund so that Parliament might have control over it and apply it either to further loans, or to recouping the Exchequer for loans, or for any other such purpose. Hon. Members will see on the capital side of the Account that one great cause of loss is created by the discount at which it is from time to time found necessary


to issue stocks on the market. They are three per cent. stocks, and in the days before the war the "sweet simplicity of the three per cents." was considered very reasonable. The loss on the capital side of the Fund was not great, and the separate account was a very convenient piece of machinery enabling the surplus funds to be dealt with in the manner I have described.
The years which have succeeded the war have, of course, created an entirely different picture, and the rates of interest prevailing have been much higher than three per cent. In order to get three per cent. stocks on to the market it was necessary to issue them at a very large discount. For example, the issue in 1921 was at 52 and the issue in 1922 was at 57. In these circumstances, it has been thought necessary to credit any such surplus to the capital account of the Fund because the existence of the separate account creates a false picture. You have an item of surplus income in the accounts which is in no true sense indicative of a surplus. Such sums will he applied to maintaining the solvency of the capital sum and the intention of the Clause is to abandon the separate account which, in the present state of the Fund, presents a misleading picture. The surplus account will be carried to where it really belongs, the deficiency on the capital side.
That is a very general description of the purpose of the Clause. If hon. Members look at the Sub-sections in detail they will see that that purpose is carried out. Sub-section (1) deals with a silghtly different matter. The Act of 1887 fixed at 2¾ per cent. the minimum rate of interest for loans paid out of the Fund. The happy conditions that prevail at present render the retention of such a minimum inadvisable. It may be possible to issue loans at a lower rate than that statutory minimum, and hon. Members will see that if the provision is allowed to stand for a minimum rate of 2¾ per cent. and if the money market enables borrowers to get loans at a still lower rate of interest than 2¾ per cent., the whole purpose of the fund will be gone. There would be no inducement to any one to apply to the Fund if they could get their money more cheaply in the market. As the purpose of the Fund is to enable small local authorities to obtain

their resources easily, we deem it prudent at this stage to take power to have the minimum abolished, so that the very best service in the way of cheap money may be given to local authorities out of the Fund.
Sub-section (1) deals with that matter. The remaining Sub-sections deal with the matter to which I have previously alluded. Sub-section (2) repeals the provisions of the Act of 1897 which set up the separate account, and brings the surplus income of the Fund into the capital account. Sub-section (3) does the same thing for capital in the separate account.

Mr. MacLAREN: The hon. Member stated that debtors, whose loans were written off the assets of the local loans fund, would not pay back the loans into this account and that they would be liable to the Treasury. How would the payment be made to the Treasury?

Mr. MORRISON: The two things would in no way clash. The fact that the debtors who are mentioned in Clause 3 of the Bill are still liable to the Treasury is a different matter from the way in which the accounts will be kept. The hon. Member will see that the Sub-section with which I was dealing makes no difference in the liability of the debtor but merely proposes a simple change in the way in which the accounts are kept.

Mr. MacLAREN: My only point was as to whether, should there be some surplus in the Fund, it will be given back to the Treasury to make up for losses.

Mr. MORRISON: No. If there is any surplus coming in to the fund, it will go into the fund itself on the capital side. The two things are not in any way inconsistent. Sub-section (4) does the same thing with regard to securities as the two previous Sub-sections do with regard to surplus income and cash in hand. Sub-section (5) is merely for the purpose of settling a small question of interpretation. I am told that there is some difference of opinion as to how the original Act should be construed in regard to whether or not the National Debt Commissioners should be able in their discretion to cancel stock, and the Sub-section is a declaratory sub-section.

Mr. ALBERY: My hon. and learned Friend has mentioned £15,000,000 as the amount in the surplus income account. Can he say what the amount of the surplus income account was at the end of the last accounting period?

Mr. MORRISON: I cannot say, as I have not the figure by me. Turning to Clause 6, the Chancellor of the Exchequer made a statement in his Budget Speech with regard to this matter. It is hoped to take advantage of the present conditions of credit in order to try to make some remission, not only in the case of future loans, but in the case of those existing loans which have been issued at some higher rate of interest. Of course the possibility of doing that depends entirely on the solvency of the Fund and on the conditions prevailing at the time. If suitable conditions present themselves, we shall try to do that, and in that case we want the relief to go to the ultimate borrower. The position is that local authorities which borrow from the Fund are frequently merely conduit-pipes for some private borrower who borrows from them. That occurs, for instance, under the Small Dwellings (Acquisition) Act, where a man can get a loan from the local authority to purchase his house, and the local authority itself can borrow money from the Local Loans Fund.

Mr. MARSHALL: Is it certain that any relief that may be given to local authorities will be passed on to the ultimate borrower?

Mr. MORRISON: I am trying to explain that that is what Clause 6 does. The object is to make sure that any such relief does get down to the man who ultimately borrows the money. Sub-section (1) says:
If a reduction is made under section thirty-one of the Finance Act, 1935, in the rate of the interest payable on a loan made out of the Local Loans Fund, the proceeds whereof have been used for the purpose of making a further loan in pursuance of powers conferred by or under any enactment, the like reduction shall be made in the rate of the interest payable on that further loan";
and Sub-section (2) goes on to say:
(2) Where the rate of interest on a loan is reduced under the said section thirty-one or the last foregoing subsection—
(a) any mortgage deed relating to the loan shall have effect as if it provided

for payment of interest at the reduced rate for the period in respect of which the reduction is made.
In other words, it is provided that any contract or mortgage entered into by a private borrower from a local authority shall, if the rate of interest on existing loans is reduced, be read as if the rate of interest was the reduced rate and not the old rate, so that the ultimate borrower will get the benefit of any reduction. I am sure the House will consider that that is a wise and just provision, because no one would like the advantage to go to the middleman. I have done my best to lay before the House shortly the provisions of the Bill. There is nothing very strange in it; it follows the usual course of these Bills. The only new matters are, first, the simplification of accounts, which I commend to the House as having the advantage that it presents a clear and not a misleading picture of the state of the Fund's finances at any given time, and, secondly, the anticipation of that happy day, which we hope may arrive, when it may be possible to take advantage of the prevailing conditions of credit to lighten the burden of interest charges on these loans.

4.51 p.m.

Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCE: In common with other Members of the House, I have listened wth much interest to the lucid exposition of the Bill which has been forthcoming from the Financial Secretary. We thank him for it, and also particularly for the new provision to which he referred in the latter part of his speech, and on which I shall have a further word to say later. The present Bill, of course, repeats the usual features of Bills of this kind, and from that point of view it is in the main entirely non-controversial. Members in all quarters of the House would naturally regret it very much if anything happened to prevent this annual Bill from finding its way on to the Statute Book. With regard to the usual provisions, I have only two questions to ask. The first is, can the Financial Secretary, or whoever is going to reply, tell us how much stock has been issued since the last Public Works Loans Act was passed; and the second is, can he form any judgment as to how long the £20,000,000 now asked for will last in order to achieve the purposes of the Fund?
The main interest of the present Bill lies in the unusual features which it contains. In the first place, it proposes to create a fresh board for the following five years. That, of course, is only unusual in the sense that it happens every five years instead of on every occasion when the Bill is introduced. I should like to ask the Financial Secretary, has he considered whether the present basis of the Board fully covers all the persons who are concerned in this matter, or does he think some additions might be made still further to widen its scope? Possibly some of my hon. Friends may wish to move the addition of one or two names at a later stage of the Bill.
Coming to the first of the two major alterations which are contained in Clause 5, it is certainly refreshing to realise that we are getting away from the high rates of interest which have delayed public development in many respects during the last two decades, and that we are getting back to the low rates of interest that were considered natural and usual in the latter years of the last century, and, if I remember aright, nearly up to the date of the War. In that connection, dealing still with Sub-section (1) of Clause 5, I should like to ask the hon. and learned Gentleman what is the precise rate of interest that is being charged to borrowers at the present time. It has to be slightly over the yield of local loans at the time, so I suppose it is possibly about 3¼ per cent.

Mr. W. S. MORRISON: In most cases it is ¼per cent. over the yield.

Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCE: So that it is probably about 3¼ or 3½ per cent. at the present time, and we are still, therefore, I am afraid, a little way from going below the figure of 2¾ per cent. We all hope that 2¾ per cent. will not only be reached during the continuance of the Bill, but that this Sub-section will actually be called into play, and that it will be possible to issue loans at rates below that figure. So far as Sub-section (2) of the Clause is concerned, the matter, of course, is somewhat complicated, but I think the Financial Secretary gave us a very lucid account which enabled us to understand what is taking place.
As I have already said, we welcome more particularly what I gather to be the hope, if not the immediate intention

of the Treasury in connection with Clause 6. The complaint has been made for a long time past—a very natural and proper complaint—that, when new borrowers could get loans at a very low rate of interest, old borrowers were still subjected to this very severe tax on their resources, and, although the explanation of the Treasury was in some ways complete, there was, I think, a feeling in all sections of the House that, if a way could be found through these difficulties, it would be of very great advantage. I do not know whether it is the expectation of the Financial Secretary, but at any rate he appears to entertain the hope, which I trust may be realised, that it may be possible as time goes on to implement the proposals of which he gave us an indication. I should like to know if he can tell us—I think the figure was given the last time this matter was discussed—what is the total amount of the loans on which the rate of interest is over 5 per cent., and what is the longest period for which they have to run. I do not suppose he is in a position to tell us what reduction he hopes to be able to make; it is perhaps too early yet to say; but we shall be glad to hear anything further that he is in a position to tell us on this extremely important point.
There is one point in that connection on which I should like a little more information. If I remember aright, the last time this matter was discussed it was pointed out that, of these high-rate loans, a very considerable part related to the Housing Act, where the Exchequer itself has to pay a great part of the expense, because the burden falling on the local authorities is limited to a penny rate. I was not quite sure, from what the Financial Secretary said in reference to Sub-section (1) of Clause 6, what would be the position with regard to those loans. Is the result of this Sub-section mainly to relieve the Exchequer, or is it proposed to give the relief principally to loans other than those in the case of which the Exchequer will benefit? If these are largely the loans which the Exchequer bears, of course, it is only helping one part of the public funds out of the other, and what the public are looking for is some relief to the local authorities and the private persons concerned. Perhaps whoever replies for the


Government will give us a little further information on that point. I should like to thank the Financial Secretary again, not only for the lucidity of his statement, but for the hope of some measure of relief which he held out to us in relation to Clause 6.

5.2 p.m.

Mr. BENSON: The first thing I wish to do is to protest very strongly against the fact that in discussing this matter we are dealing with accounts which are practically two years old. The latest figures we have published take us to 31st March, 1934. These accounts are published annually and this is an annual Bill, and there seems to be no earthly reason why the accounts and the Bill should not be made simultaneous and why we should not have the Bill after the accounts are published and made available to the House. How is it possible to criticise a Bill on accounts that are possibly two years old? The hon. Member for East Edinburgh (Mr. Pethick-Lawrence) has asked if the Financial Secretary to the Treasury would give us some indication as to when we may hope that the loans already granted at high rates of interest may show some abatement of the interest charge. This is a very important matter, and when one looks at the actual incidence of these high rates of interest, it is even more pressing. The maximum rate of interest at which money is lent by the local Loans Commissioners, is actually 6¾ per cent. Sixteen per cent. of their total outstanding loans are at 6½ per cent. and over; 26 per cent. of their outstanding loans are at 6 per cent. and over; and 68 per cent. of them are at 5 per cent. and over. The hon. Gentleman may reply that a very large amount of that money does not really constitute a heavy burden on the local authorities on account of the liability of the penny rate. But if we deduct that there is at least £40,000,000 loaned to local authorities at 5 per cent. and over on which they have to bear the full incidence of the high rate charged.
We are not blaming the Local Loans Commissioners. They have lent money on the basis of one quarter per cent. plus sinking fund more than they have had to pay for the money they advance. The real nigger in the wood-pile is the Treasury Interest rates are dropping.

The big local authorities, like Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham, have made big conversions, just as the Government have done, and they are receiving very considerable advantages from the drop in interest charges. The smaller local authorities which are in the clutches of the Local Loans Board are asking why they also cannot take advantage of this very great drop in the rate of interest. The reason is not far to seek. It is owing to the appalling mishandling by the Treasury in the raising of money for the Local Loans Commissioners. What they have done is to issue 3 per cent. stock. Why, under the circumstances, they have done this heaven alone knows. The only explanation I can think of is because it was laid down in the National Debt and Local Loans Act, 1887, that they should issue 3 per cent. stock. Acts of Parliament have been modified before now. Why was that not modified in the time of high rates? They have issued 3 per cent. stock at as low as 50. The issue of low interest bearing stocks at a very high rate of discount, is an extraordinarily bad practice. The Colwyn Committee condemned the issuing of any form of loan at a discount. There may be some justification for it when it is a question of price and the stock shows discount of only 1 or 1½ per cent., but to issue stock at a discount of 50 per cent. is iniquitous. I do not think the word iniquitous applied to the Treasury will hurt them very much. It is silly. That may hurt them a great deal more—or at least it should do.
They have issued to the public since the War £80,000,000 of nominal stock. For that £80,000,000 of nominal stock they have received £42,000,000. £30,000,000 was issued at 50; £20,000,000 was issued at 52 and £30,000,000 was issued at 57. What has happened to that stock? Let us take the £30,000,000 of stock issued at 50. The public subscribed for that £30,000,000 of stock £15,000,000, and on that they get 6 per cent. interest. They got 3 per cent. on the £30,000,000; therefore they got 6 per cent. on the £15,000,000 which they paid on that stock. That stock cannot be redeemed except at par, so that if we want to get rid of that stock we shall have paid them 6 per cent. on the money invested, with a premium of a 100 per cent. on it if it comes to be redeemed. At the present time the investors who subscribed


that £80,000,000 of stock in 1920 and 1921 have actually received between 5½ and 6 per cent. interest on the money invested and they have already received on the £42,000,000 with which they bought the £80,000,000 of stock a capital increment of £34,000,000 which has not paid a penny of income tax or super tax. This is the way the Treasury have financed the Local Loans Board.
Those are the facts. What is to be done about it? Here I may perhaps correct the Financial Secretary, who said in his opening remarks that the last issue was in 1921 at 57. As a matter of fact, there have been nine issues since then, representing practically half the capital of the Local Loans Stock.

Mr. W. S. MORRISON: I referred to the last public issue of stock.

Mr. BENSON: But there has been issued since then something like £200,000,000 to the National Debt Commissioners.

Mr. MORRISON: Yes, Sir. The stock has been created but not issued to the public. It has gone to the National Debt Commissioners, and the last creation was in 1931.

Mr. BENSON: I am going to deal with that. The position is roughly this. The Local Loans Commissioners are responsible for a gross sum of £429,000,000 upon which they pay 3 per cent. But the actual cash they have received is only £290,000,000; and the result is that their nominal 3 per cent. works out at £4 9s. 5d. per cent. which they actually have to pay on the cash they have received. The problem we have to face, if we wish to reduce the rate of interest materially and immediately to the local authorities, is how we can square that nominal 3 per cent. they pay with the actual £4 9s. 5d. per cent. If we had to deal with this in details of interest rates on the 30 or 40 various issues that have been made I think we should muddle what is a comparatively simple matter. I would ask the Financial Secretary to turn to page 5 of his accounts where there is the figure of £142,000,000, representing discount on local loans stock issued. I think in discussing the question of interest rates we can simplify the discussion very much if we concentrate on that figure. I want the Financial Secretary to agree that if by any means we can wipe out

that figure and make a corresponding reduction on the other side of the account in the capital for which the Local Loans Commissioners are responsible—that is the nominal amount of stock, £429,000,000—we shall solve the problem of the rates of interest. Does the Financial Secretary agree with that? I assure him that his advisers will tell him that this is quite correct. It is a fact that if we can wipe out that £142,000,000 we thereby enable the Public Works Loans Commissioners to lend at 3 per cent. plus their differential quarter. I hope to carry the Financial Secretary with me on that point. My argument is based on that assumption. The question is how are we going to get rid of that £142,000,000 of discount. When we look at the holding of local loans, the National Debt Commissioners hold not less than £286,000,000, whereas the public hold not more than £143,000,000. But those are not the most important figures. The important figures are in what proportion are the two holding bodies, the public and the National Debt Commissioners, entitled to the increment, or the discount, or whatever you like to call it, and I find that the National Debt Commissioners are entitled, in the case of the redemption of the stock, to £109,000,000 out of £142,000,000 whereas the public are only entitled to a proportion amounting to £33,000,000. It seems to me that that is the key to the solution of the problem. The National Debt Commissioners, of that £142,000,000, hold £109,000,000. There is no earthly reason why that should not be cancelled forthwith. The National Debt Commissioners hold £286,000,000 worth of nominal stock, for which they only paid £177,000,000 cash into the pockets of the Local Loans Commissioners. If they get back what they paid there is no loss. The Financial Secretary may say that since those transactions have taken place the National Debt Commissioners have handed over the stock to various departments where it has been taken into account. That may be so, but all these matters have been merely inter-departmental transactions.

Mr. DENMAN: The savings banks.

Mr. BENSON: The savings banks have merely taken this as security.

Mr. DENMAN: Does the hon. Member propose to raid the savings banks?

Mr. BENSON: I have not suggested for a moment that any fund should be raided. I have merely suggested that the Treasury, or any Government Department that holds Local Loan stock, should be prepared to cancel the unearned increment upon it. As a matter of fact, all this is an inter-departmental transaction. They are book entries. They may not even have been written up. I do not know. Treasury finance is a mystery. If they have not written them up, they still stand at the actual cash paid for them—£177,000,000. If they have written them up, they have been written up simply and solely as book writings up and can be written down in exactly the same way. The Treasury have received for that £289,000,000 £177,000,000 and, if they get their £177,000,000 back for the stock, they have nothing to grumble at.
There is, however, the question of the £33,000,000 which has been issued to the public and which we cannot write down in the manner that I have suggested. Fortunately the Local Loans accounts are in a position to wipe that out. On page 5 again practically £19,000,000 are recovered under various items, mainly surplus income. In the surplus income account the balances amount to £15,000,000, so that we have various surpluses and balances in the account amounting to £34,000,000 already. Here we have assets of £34,000,000, against the £33,000,000 of increment which has taken place in the stock held by the public, so that the fund is actually in a position to wipe that out. We shall have £2,000,000 surplus this year in all probability, and that will enable the Financial Secretary also to wipe out the various other items of £2,400,000, leaving us finally in a position completely to wipe out the £142,000,000. The Treasury is in a position, without finding a penny, to wipe out the £142,000,000 discount item in the Local Loans stock. If they do that, the Local Loans Commissioners will be able to wipe out corresponding stock on the other side, they will pay 3 per cent. or thereabouts instead of £4 9s. 5d. per cent., and they will thereby be able to reduce the rate of interest to every local authority that they have lent to at these high rates of 4, 4½, 5, up to 6¾ per cent.
The Treasury may not be prepared to do what I am suggesting but they are going to enforce upon other people exactly the same line of conduct. The

Financial Secretary said that a large number of local authorities borrowed money and were merely conduits for that money to the ultimate borrower. What is the Treasury but a conduit? The Treasury has no more right to a fantastically high differential income than any other body, local authority or Local Loans Commissioners. The Treasury can offer a very large amount of encouragement to local authorities by relieving them of these heavy rates. They can do it by carrying out the principle which they have enunciated in Clause 6 and which they themselves intend to apply to local authorities. If they will not do this—I have no doubt the Financial Secretary will have excellent reasons why it cannot he done—there is only one reason why they do not, and that can be summed up in the phrase, "You cannot get butter out of a dog's throat."

5.24 p.m.

Mr. ALBERY: I have tried to follow the hon. Member's complicated account. As far as I can make out, he proposes to take money out of one pocket and put it into another and pay it to someone else from a third pocket. I cannot follow his £30,000,000 surplus. I can find only £15,000,000 surplus in the Surplus Income account. I really rose to ask the Financial Secretary if he could give a little more explanation as to the procedure that it is proposed to follow under Clause 6. These various loans to local authorities and others were made at various rates—from 3½ to 6 per cent. If by means of a conversion operation a reduction is brought about, is it proposed to apply the benefit by a larger reduction in the higher rates, or is it proposed to make an even reduction right through? To make my question a little clearer, if there was enough money available to reduce the interest on all borrowings by a half per cent., is that the procedure that would be adopted or would it be proposed to knock 1 per cent. off the very onerous rates and make no reduction in the lower rates?

5.26 p.m.

Mr. QUIBELL: There is one point which affects the original housing loans, on which interest is charged in some cases at 6, 6¼ and 6½ per cent. I should like to know whether local authorities will be able, in consequence of these resolutions, to avail themselves of a conversion in a similar way to the conversion


of national stock. It has prevented many authorities from being able to reduce the rents of the original houses, which are shockingly high. Pressure has been brought by numerous local authorities on the Department concerned. It seems to me that the Government Department has held local authorities to ransom and prevented a reduction of rents. It would be conferring a very great boon on the tenants of the houses if advantage could be taken of this. But there is some other very interesting information contained in this statement—particulars of Loans, etc., and Assets to be written off. I notice that advances have been made to farms, and the Government have not been very happy in the realisations. One farm just outside my division has realised the magnificent sum of £5 an acre. The Government claim that they have put farming on its feet. They put this fellow on his feet all right. At one time he could ride in a car, but now he is walking. All that needs to be done is to get the Minister of Agriculture to continue this magnificent policy of his and the Public Works Loans Board to keep their hold on these farms that fall in and nationalise the land automatically. There must have been something very lax either in the valuation or in the realisation. There is a tremendous discrepancy between the original valuation for mortgage purposes and the realised value of the farms. In one case the value is £15 an acre and the realised sum was something like £5. I think there must have been undue haste in realising. I think they ought to have retained them. It would be a good way of carrying out the policy for which we on these benches stand of nationalising the land and doing it at very little expense.

5.30 p.m.

Mr. G. HARDIE: My hon. Friend the Member for Brigg (Mr. Quibell) has referred to what might happen in the nationalisation of the land, but I would take the matter a step further. If the Minister of Agriculture with his mix-up and the Financial Secretary, with the mix-up he has shown us to-day concerning what is contained in these pages, got together and continued the muddle, the Government would be compelled to take over the land to cover up the mess. With regard to the valuation—I need not read this through—it is a question of taking

the valuation made for the Department. What system was adopted in obtaining the valuation? Anyone reading the various accounts and details would come to the conclusion that either there had been some mistake made somewhere or that these farms had never been worked as profitable farms. I should like to know at what date these farms were giving a profit, and what change came about so that on valuation the whole lot of them showed a large deficit? What I and a great many hon. Members want to know is the cause of this huge difference. Was it a question of an inflated valuation owing to some local influence, or was it simply a question of the manipulation of circumstances in order to get a loan? The Forty Thieves were decent fellows compared with this kind of method. At least they were direct in what they sought to obtain, and they were honest men in that. It is a very different thing when you get people coming along trying to create a belief that they were honest English gentlemen getting down to methods like this and trying to hide it in all these pages of small print, and putting it in sideways. It says:
The Public Works Loans Commissioners made an advance of £540.…
The Public Works Loans Commissioners made an advance of £3,907, and so on.
When you come to the end of the description you always find it states that it was impracticable to take steps to secure the deficiency. We have been told that the land is full of difficulties. There must have been some period when these were really farms. Is this some obnoxious thing which has been introduced to describe these lands as farms in order to get a loan? If that is not the case, it is for those in charge of the Bill to-day to say how long these lands have been farms, and when they were being worked as farms. A farm is not something with which you can juggle. You have a man using his spade, and you have the result of the seed. You cannot juggle with them. But when you commence to make a loan you meet the swindler and the juggler on all sides.
This Bill makes provision for £20,000,000. It authorises the remitting of £200 on one Scottish business, not in respect of a farm, but in respect of a harbour. The remissions following that


item come under the Agricultural Credits Act, 1923, and amount to £11,403 11s. 11d. It is very interesting to note that the subjects in respect of which loans were advanced were agricultural holdings in regard to which the valuations were made for the Department and not by the Department. We are told that the proper method to do that is to get a local valuer, but in every case of which I know you never pick a local man to carry out valuations for a Government Department. I could give a hundred instances. You always obtain a man who is not known to the people in the district in case a local man should be in league with them. I do not say that these figures show that local men were in league in order to get a loan that was twice the value, say, of the farms. I could say that from what is contained in this Bill. I have the evidence here.
It is clear that if valuations were made which proved that after a certain number of years there was a deficit, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury has to answer the question whether these farms had at any time been worked at a profit, and whether the valuations in the years when the farms were paying concerns were different from the valuations made by the supposed local and interested valuer.
When it comes to the question of a valuation of a farm and you require the basis upon which you are to issue a loan, you have to obtain the valuation apart from the question of local, private and personal interests. You must see to it that that circumstance is taken right out of the whole consideration of the matter. Taking the figures as they appear in the Bill, the total of these valuations was £54,605, the total of the loans granted amounted to £40,107, and the amount to be written off is £11,403 11s. 11d. If it is to be assumed that the valuations were approximately the prices paid by the borrowers, then, not only have the Public Works Loans Commissioners lost £11,403, but the individual borrowers have lost £14,418, making £25,821—almost half the price paid. And the landlords scoop the whole lot. I see the right hon. Member the Minister without Portfolio on the Front Bench, and I am glad to know that he is designated as the man who has to do the thinking. Since there is not much to choose between those sitting on the opposite side with regard to the capacity

for thinking, if I were asked to choose the one who might do some thinking I should choose the right hon. Gentleman. I saw him smile just now because I said that the landlords got the lot. He cannot stand at that Box and deny that assertion. He knows because he belongs to that category which I described at the beginning of my speech. He is well known and belongs to the category of those who made all these conditions possible and have given us a mixed-up muck-heap of a Bill like this.
Why should you call this a Public Works Loans Bill when you ought to have done the thing direct? This Parliament believes that you should not do anything direct but should do it indirectly and in diverse ways. Instead of coming along and saying, "Here is something that requires to be done and necessitates the provision of money," you set up a Public Works Loans Board, and then, before it is possible to get any aid from the Public Works Loans Board, you have to spend money in getting gentlemen with false hair on their heads to argue with each other in order to determine whether that which is true is true or not. When the Government tried to get out of the morass which they have created by incapacity, especially in regard to the use of this land, they have to bring a Bill forward which, if you read its pages, makes the position so difficult that only one or two Members may be able to understand it. The Financial Secretary to the Treasury is a Scotsman and knows exactly what it means when he is dealing with a national brother. I am not asking for any favours. I will dip my dirk to his at any time. This afternoon he made a statement in regard to this scheme, and I make this personal appeal to him as a fellow countryman, that on the question of this Public Works Loans business he should get his Government to see that all this sort of thing is a waste of time, and that they should adopt a smaller and more accurate machine to do the work, and do it much better.

5.42 p.m.

Mr. GARRO-JONES: I do not propose to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Springburn (Mr. Hardie) in the light and amusing speech which he has made, though I believe there were many substantial truths underlying his


remarks. I want to point to another aspect of this Schedule of farms which have been bought and sold under the supervision of the Agricultural Credits Act. These figures throw a lurid light on the state of agriculture in this country. We find that one farm, for example, which was valued at £2,750 has had to be sold for £1,000, another which was valued at £3,180 had to be sold two years later for £2,080, and another valued at £1,950 had to be sold only eight years later for £500. I do not think that these are exceptional cases. I do not mind whether a farm was over valued to begin with or whether it was sold for too small a price when it was sold. The real truth is that these farms, like many other farms, have suffered a heavy and serious depreciation during the time that this Government has been in office.

Lord EUSTAGE PERCY (Minister without Portfolio): What about 1931?

Mr. GARRO-JONES: I am not entitled to go into that at length, but to make the point of principle that these figures illuminate almost like a flash of lightning what is going on in agriculture in this country to-day. I hope that the Government will take it as a warning that if we could have the whole of the farms of this country valued now in comparison to their value 10 years ago, and realised the losses which farmers have suffered—

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Sir Dennis Herbert): I think the hon. Member knows that his remarks are quite out of order.

Mr. GARRO-JONES: I realise that on points of detail I may be out of order, but I thought that I was entitled to point out the principle.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: The hon. Member would not only be out of order to discuss points of detail, but also when he came to discuss the general principle of agriculture.

Mr. GARRO-JONES: I will not pursue the point, but I should like to make one further point. We are asked to reimburse the sum of £11,000. Almost inevitably we find that we are asked to reimburse losses but we never find that we are recouped when profits are earned. In almost every sphere where the Government interferes with finance we have the

losses to reimburse but never any profits to draw. It is not that no profits have been made. Substantial profits have been made, but they go into private pockets. It is when losses are incurred that we have to recoup them. Loans have been made under the Agricultural Credits Act, and I believe I am right in stating that those loans stand at a capital appreciation to-day. There is no question of the Government participating in that appreciation, but if the Government have given a guarantee and the capital depreciates, it is the same old story over and over again that they come to the public purse to recoup those losses. There are the cases of the Sugar Beet Subsidy, Imperial Airways, the Bank of England exchange losses and now the Agricultural Credits. Time and again we shall have that position repeated during the next three years. We shall be asked to recoup losses that have been incurred, but on the other side of the sleigh when profits are earned, they will not be mentioned but will be put into private pockets.
I would ask the Finance Secretary to the Treasury to take advantage of the great opportunity that presents itself to him. He has taken his present office, suddenly, amid the high hopes of his colleagues and followers. He has an opportunity to revolutionise the defective principle which has guided the conduct of his party hitherto, namely, that the State shall pay losses but the State shall not share profits. If he wants to go down in history as the greatest Financial Secretary who ever stood at that Box, he can do it by revolutionising that principle and saying once for all that if the State is going to recoup losses it must stipulate that it shall share in the profits.

5.52 p.m.

Mr. EDE: I should like to draw attention to Clause 6, especially the point mentioned by the hon. Member for Brigg (Mr. Quibell), and its possible effect on the housing finance of the local authorities and the Treasury. A good many local authorities borrowed money in the early days after the War at rates of not less than 6½ per cent. from the Public Works Loans Commissioners, under the Addison scheme of finance, where everything over a loss of a penny rate had to be borne by the Treasury. Not only was the rate of interest very high but the price of the


houses was very high, because the loans covered the peak period in the cost of house building. Therefore, we are paying very high rates of interest on houses that are now worth nothing like the capital sums paid for them when they were erected.
Some of the houses built in the neighbourhood of London, three bed-roomed houses cost £1,100 in those days. [HON. MEMBERS: £1,500.] I never like to overstate a case. I was dealing with cases within my own knowledge. I do not suggest that I was stating the maximum. There were thousands of houses built at £1,100, and those houses could now be built for half that sum. If you take a house that costs £650 and you reduce the rate of interest by 1 per cent., that is equivalent to a reduction of 2s. 6d. in the rent. Housing authorities throughout the country are still handicapped by the finance of those early days. Nobody complains about the Act itself or the policy of the local authorities in the matter, because they had to deal with a very urgent situation and, as usual, the money lenders did very well out of the nation. I hope that the people who are having to pay this heavy interest will receive some satisfaction.
There is another group of people for whom I would appeal, and I hope the Treasury will see that they get some help. The Minister of Labour is an Englishman who represents a Scottish seat, and the Financial Secretary is a Scotsman who represents an English seat. I am not quite sure which country has had the advantage of the exchange.

Mr. HARDIE: England, absolutely.

Mr. EDE: It would be the first time that we have had the better of the exchange. The Minister of Labour was in a by-election in Mitcham in 1923 when he was the Liberal candidate, and I was the Labour candidate. In those days he had his own views about the people among whom he now sits. A very great amount of building of houses of the owner-occupier type took place in the Mitcham division and very high rates of interest were charged, compared with which we have now to pay, by the Public Works Loans Board to the Mitcham Urban Council of those days for the money advanced for that purpose. That rate of interest is still being paid by the

owner-occupiers who bought houses under the scheme. I hope that those people also will gain some benefit from any reduction in interest that may now be available. They are small people, many of whom have suffered very substantial reductions in salary during the last 10 years.
As a member of the public assistance committee of the county in which those houses are situated, I know that in some cases the interest and repayment of principal are being met by the public assistance committee as relief grants. We are faced occasionally with the dilemma of deciding whether you can call a person destitute who is the owner of part of a house. We can only hope that such a person is the owner of that part of the house which appears likeliest to stay up the longest. I hope these people will be borne in mind. I was a Member of the House in 1923 when the Agricultural Credits Act was passed, under which advances were made, the losses on which are mentioned in the Memorandum that has been issued. It seems to me that that state of affairs is a complete fulfilment of what we prophesied. We said that the public would be asked to take over those mortgages which the banks were not inclined to run risks about.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: We cannot discuss the Agricultural Credits Act now.

Mr. EDE: The losses with which we are faced to-day and with which we are asked to deal under this Bill are a result of policies adopted, on which we foreshadowed losses. I am sure that hon. Members who were here in 1923 will remember the prophecies which we made. I regret to find that in that matter I was a true prophet. With regard to the commissioners, I had hoped that the opportunity would have been taken on this occasion to reinforce the commissioners with people who had spent some time in local government. The policy of the Board would be viewed with more favour by local authorities if a larger proportion of the people who act as commissioners came from people who have been actively engaged in local government and have acquired some reputation in that field of public activity. When we sat on the benches opposite in 1929–31 we were able to introduce three names which are still on the Commission, and I had hoped that at the end of the list we might have seen


two or three more names of people who have served on local government bodies and have acquired some reputation in the management of local government business. At the present time this body is far too distant from the ordinary humdrum affairs and day-to-day administration of local government, and I hope that as opportunity occurs the Government will try to reinforce the Board by persons of that calibre.

5.55 p.m.

Mr. W. S. MORRISON: I can speak again only by leave of the House in reply to some of the criticisms that have been offered. The hon. Member for East Edinburgh (Mr. Pethick-Lawrence) asked me how much has been issued out of the fund since the last Act was passed. Powers were taken in the last Act for £18,000,000 as a maximum and of that sum £15,500,000 have been issued. When the new Act receives the Royal Assent that surplus will be disposed of. Questions have been raised with regard to the constitution of the Board. We have tried to make the Board as representative as possible, but I would remind hon. Members that a great deal of the work of the Board is of a financial character. While I agree with the hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) that it is an advantage to have the local government point of view represented, the main work of the Board is financial and one must therefore have the Board sufficiently strong in regard to that aspect of its duty.
I have been asked to give the total amount of loans issued at over 5 per cent. The figures at the end of the last financial year were £91,000,000. I cannot say the longest period that the loans have yet to run, but if the hon. Member who raised that matter wishes the information I will get it for him.

Mr. MacLAREN: From what source has the Financial Secretary obtained these figures?

Mr. MORRISON: They are taken from the Treasury. Several hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Gravesend (Mr. Albery), raised the question as to what procedure will be adopted if and when it is found possible by conversion or some other method to deal with the existing loans. I am not in a position to

say what the precise procedure will be. It must depend to a great extent upon the amount by which you can reduce the loans and upon the amount of the money at your disposal. If it was a large amount an all-round reduction might be possible, whereas a small amount might have to be applied in some specialised direction. The main thing is to try to get into the position when that point will arise for consideration. In the Bill now before the House we are asking for certain machinery provisions to enable us to take advantage of the opportunity when it arises. We can defer the consideration of the precise machinery to be adopted until we know the result, and then these various other matters can arise for discussion. The hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benson) complained that the accounts were a year old. It is a little unfortunate that the Debate is taking place now; if it had been taking place next month the hon. Member would have had last year's accounts in his possession.

Mr. BENSON: Why not now?

Mr. MORRISON: The accounts are issued ten months after the close of the year, and if the hon. Member considers the multiplicity of calculations which are necessary, I do not think that he will consider it an unnecessary delay.

Mr. BENSON: I am not complaining that the accounts are so late but that the Debate is not taking place after the accounts have been issued. There is no reason why the Debate should not succeed instead of precede the accounts.

Mr. MORRISON: I appreciate what the hon. Member says, and while it is a little difficult to co-ordinate all the activities of the Government, I will bear the point in mind. He put the question as to when this abatement will take place. I cannot tell; it depends on the circumstances, and we shall take advantage of the circumstances when they arise. The hon. Member also made a great deal of play with the capital increment which will accrue to those who bought local stock. I have no doubt that all considerations were present to the minds of those who considered the purchase of this stock a good bargain, and that they took into consideration the fact that there might be such capital increment. When the hon. Member attempted a solution and


suggested a method by which the Government can get out of their difficulties, I found it hard to follow him. If we could sweep away at once a debt of £142,000,000 it would be a very good thing, but certain repercussions of any such opperation would have to be considered. The hon. Member thought it was only a book-keeping transaction—this holiday of the National Debt Commissioners. So it is, but one of the books concerned is the Post Office Savings Bank. The National Debt Commissioners have to hold these and other securities as backing for the Post Office Savings Bank Funds, which are entrusted to them to look after, and the suggestion that in order to help the National Debt Commissioners should solemnly wipe off £142,000,000 of that necessary backing would be a shock to some people.

Mr. MacLAREN: It would shock the right hon. Member for St. Ives (Mr. Runciman).

Mr. MORRISON: And it should shock the hon. Member. He is chiefly concerned with the land, but I think he would view such a transaction with some apprehension. The hon. Member for Brigg (Mr. Quibell) seemed to take a rather gloomy view of the rural side of this matter, and no doubt he will be glad to know that the debts which are to be remitted are only a small part of the sums loaned. About £4,750,000 has been issued to agriculture, and the total amount is a sum of £18,000. I am not a very good arithmetician, but I think that less than 1/240th part of what has been lent is contained in the Schedule; and that is one penny in the pound. To get a true picture of what the Schedule means you must keep that in mind. The hon. Member must bear in mind that these loans, none of which have been made since 1928, were for the benefit of agriculture, and that the Government are making an effort to improve the industry, an effort which should receive the strong support of the hon. Member. I appreciate the point made by several hon. Members as to the high cost of housing loans which were made in the five years immediately after the War. That is a factor which is present to all of us. As far as any of the operations are financed by the Board, it is not true that all were—there is no

doubt that if it were possible to reduce the burden of capital charges it would be a good thing. I am asking for the Second Reading of a Bill which is designed to equip the Treasury and the Commissioners with powers which should, among other things, and when a favourable opportunity arises, do what is regarded as a very desirable object.

Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCE: The Financial Secretary has not answered one question of mine. I asked how Clause 6 would work out in the case of housing loans where the Exchequer at present bears a considerable part. Will it inure to the benefit of the Exchequer, or will it be to the advantage of the local authority?

Mr. MORRISON: As I have said in my reply, it is too early to say what will be the best way in which to apply any of these provisions, but if the hon. Member will look at Clause 6 we will see that it refers to a debt owed by an individual, and the object of the Clause is to achieve the passing of any relief on to the individual.

Mr. EDE: Are not all these loans to local authorities given as mortgages?

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: The hon. Member has exhausted his right to speak. This is the second speech he has made.

Bill committed to a Committee of the Whole House, for Monday next.—[Lieut.-Colonel Sir A. Lambert Ward.]

Orders of the Day — PUBLIC WORKS LOANS [REMISSION OF DEBT].

Considered in Committee, under Standing Order No. 69.

[Sir DENNIS HERBERT in the Chair.]

Resolved,
That, for the purpose of any Act of the present Session relating to local loans, it is expedient to authorise the remission of arrears of principal and interest due to the Public Works Loan Commissioners in respect of Eyemouth Harbour.—(King's Recommendation signified.)—[Mr. W. S. Morrison.]

Resolution to be reported To-morrow.

Orders of the Day — EXPIRING LAWS CONTINUANCE BILL.

Considered in Committee.

[Sir DENNIS HERBERT in the Chair.]

CLAUSE 1.—(Continuance of Acts in Schedule.)

6.13 p.m.

Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCE: I beg to move, in page 1, line 18, to leave out "Part I of."
The Committee will appreciate that the three Amendments to this Bill in my name on the Order Paper operate together. The object is to omit all references to the Debts Clearing Office and Import Restrictions Act, 1934. I have taken the course of putting down my Amendments not because we necessarily desire a recision of this Act, but because it is the normal procedure and enables us to put certain questions to the Minister in charge, who, I understand, is the Secretary for the Overseas Trade Department, relating to this Act. It will be within the recollection of hon. Members who were in the last Parliament that this Bill originally took the form of a permanent Bill, and that there was a good deal of criticism and debate on the Second Reading and during the Committee stage. As a result of those debates, an Amendment was inserted limiting the duration of the Act to two years. That is why it comes before us to-day in the form of a Measure which it is proposed to continue by means of the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill.
The Act consists of two essential Sections. The first Section was introduced specifically to deal with a certain state of affairs prevailing in Germany. Originally it was called a Reprisals Bill, but the second Section, on the other hand was not to deal with Germany but with other countries, and was for the purpose of enabling the Government to make quota arrangements in certain circumstances. That, I believe is a correct interpretation of the two Sections of the Act. With regard to the first Section of the Act, the clearing office envisaged under the Act has never been set up and therefore, the first question which I put to the Minister is: Why has this clearing office not been set up? His answer may be that it was unnecessary to do so and, if that be the answer, I put the further

question: Why, then, is it necessary to continue the Act? It may be said that the existence of this power in reserve—the right to set up a clearing office—is what the Government have in mind and the Minister, no doubt, will tell us whether that is the case or not. If it be the case, there is a third question which I would put to the Minister. Does he contemplate the necessity of this Act being continued indefinitely or does he only wish to continue it for a year? Can he give us any encouragement to believe that it will be possible to bring the Act to an end at the end of the year? If it is intended to continue these powers ad infinitum would it not be better to bring in a permanent Measure instead of including this Act in the Expiring Laws Bill?
Similar considerations arise on the second Section of the Act. I do not know to what extent the powers given to the Government under this Section have been used and I shall be glad to hear from the Minister on that point. If these powers have been used I would ask him to give us specific instances so that we may know where we stand in this matter. If they have not been used. I hope he will give us reasons for the continuance of this provision and also tell us how long he thinks its continuance will be required. These are points on which the Committee is entitled to information and we shall judge of our attitude towards the proposal largely by the Minister's answer to our questions.

6.19 p.m.

Captain EUAN WALLACE (Secretary, Overseas Trade Department): No one representing the Government could possibly complain of the raising of this matter by the hon. Member for East Edinburgh (Mr. Pethick-Lawrence) and certainly nobody could complain of the tone or the manner in which he has raised it. I was glad to observe from his opening sentences that his Amendments are exploratory rather than destructive and I do not think I shall have any difficulty in satisfying him, his hon. Friends and the Committee as a whole, that this Act, which we propose to continue for another 18 months under the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill, is well worth keeping on the Statute Book. It consists, as the hon. Gentleman has pointed out, of two main Sections, the first of which gives


the Government power to set up a clearing office and the second to restrict imports under a licensing system.
Section 1 of the Act gives us power to set up a clearing office in any case where a foreign country restricts, prohibits, or discontinues payments or transfers of debts to persons in this country. The setting up of such a clearing office would be done under a Treasury Order. To put it very briefly, all debts specified in such an order—it would not necessarily apply to every debt—due by persons in this country to the foreign country would have to be paid into the clearing office and the fund so collected would be distributed by the clearing office to pay the debts due from that foreign country. In view of the terms in which the hon. Gentleman has raised the question I do not think it is necessary for me to go into the provisions made for the furnishing of necessary information or the charges which might have to be made on the moneys disbursed to cover the cost of the clearing office. I am able to answer the hon. Gentleman's first question by telling him that we have not in fact had to set up the clearing office and probably he, in common with most hon. Members, will be glad to hear it.
The Government have strong objections on general grounds to any clearing house system. Clearing houses artificially direct trade into certain channels and tend to canalise it. They interpose a cumbrous machinery of payment between the debtor and the creditor. The ease with which importers in the weaker country can, under this system, pay for foreign goods in their own currency rather encourages imports into the weaker country instead of restricting them, thus having precisely the opposite effect to that intended, which is reaching something like an approximate balance of trade between the two countries. Similarly, the existence of such a system encourages exporters in the stronger country to believe that their payment is assured and that they need not exercise reasonable caution in their commitments. For those reasons, the Government regard the clearing house system as something not to be applied if it can possibly be helped. I am glad to say that, thanks in some degree to the existence of this Act, we have been able to resolve our

difficulties as to commercial payments in practically every case, and notably in the case to which the hon. Gentleman referred, that of Germany. In that case there is a Payments Agreement, signed on 1st November last year, which, according to my information, has succeeded up to the present in liquidating £4,250,000 out of £5,000,000 of frozen debts.
I now come to the second question, which is: If this clearing office has been found unnecessary, why continue the Act? We want to continue it for much the same sort of reason as people continue to carry umbrellas in this country during the winter months. Like my hon. and learned Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, I am temperamentally inclined to take the optimistic view and I hope that it may not be long before we shall be able to allow this Measure to lapse. But I am advised, and personally persuaded, that it would be the greatest possible mistake to deprive ourselves in the immediate future of the potential advantages which this weapon in reserve, if I may so describe it, gives us. The Committee will observe that we propose to continue the Act, not for a year as is usual but for 18 months. The reason is one of administrative convenience. The Act is due to expire on 30th June next year if we do not take any action and I thank the Committee will agree that it is better either to continue it for six months and so bring it into line with other Measures under this Bill, or else continue it for 18 months. The view of my right hon. Friend is that it is unlikely that we shall be able to do without it after 31st December, 1936, and it seems unnecessary to make two bites at a rather small cherry. For that reason we ask that it shall be continued for 18 months. Almost everything I have said about Section 1 of the Act applies also to Section 2.

Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCE: Before the hon. and gallant Gentleman leaves Section 1 will he say whether he expects that the Act will be continued indefinitely?

Captain WALLACE: I thought I had made that clear. I do not take such a gloomy view of the situation. I do not think that there will be any necessity for the Government to do what the hon.


Gentleman himself suggested and ask for power to put this Act permanently on the Statute Book. We believe that the particular circumstances of this time can well be met by continuing the Act as we propose under the Expiring Laws Bill. I think the House of Commons would probably resent the introduction of a Measure which was not to come up for review, precisely on the lines of one which we had not so far been obliged to use. What I have said on Section 1 applies also to Section 2 as regards the point under discussion, namely, the advisability of keeping the Act in being. Section 2 gives power to the President of the Board of Trade to apply import prohibitions or restrictions on goods from countries which impose quantitative restrictions in a discriminatory sense against our products. This power to restrict imports from foreign countries corresponds to powers which the great majority of foreign countries in fact possess and there is nothing very extraordinary in the Board of Trade taking such a power. We have indeed found that the existence of this power has been extremely useful, notably in the case of trade with Holland. In one sense it is over-ridden by the existence of commercial treaties and it may interest the Committee to know that at this moment we could only apply the section to China and Peru. On the other hand the Government can always denounce a commercial treaty, most of them can be determined in a year and some in a much shorter period, and even if the letter of a commercial treaty precluded the use of the powers in Section 2 I think there is very little doubt that in certain circumstances we might have a moral right to use them.
The fact that we possess these powers strengthens our hands in dealing with any attempt at definitely discriminatory terms against our trade. The situation in this respect has not improved since the Act was passed. There are to-day 36 countries which have power to apply discriminatory restrictions, and 16 of them have acted upon it for the first time or taken additional action subsequent to the passing of the Act. The powers under Section 2 are strictly comparable to those which have been taken under the Import Duties Act, 1932, which enables us to meet discrimination by discriminatory import duties. The Section was applied with consider-

able success in one particular case, and the Government felt at the time, and feel now, that it might in certain cases be more appropriate to reply to discriminatory import restrictions by this Section than by putting on additional duties. Therefore, we regard Section 2 of the Act as a very desirable complement to Section 12 of the Import Duties Act, 1932. I hope I have said enough to convince the hon. Gentleman that although we have been fortunate enough to have avoided invoking the powers under either Section of this measure, it would, in all the circumstances of the world to-day, be unwise to deprive ourselves of this modest reserve; and when I say, in conclusion, that the existence of this Act on the Statute Book is not costing anybody a penny, I hope the Committee will agree with me that it would perhaps not be very wise to take off our overcoats in the middle of December. I hope in those circumstances the hon. Gentleman will be good enough to withdraw his Amendment.

6.32 p.m.

Sir JOHN WARDLAW-MILNE: I support the passing of this Bill, but I hope my hon. and gallant Friend who has just sat down will forgive me if I say at once that while I admire his optimism, my complaint is not that the Government propose to continue this Measure, but that they have not put it into operation. My hon. Friend over and over again, and I have no doubt quite correctly from his point of view, expressed the desire that he should he able to continue with an Act of this kind merely, I understand, as a measure of protection in the future, but in the hope that it would never be put into operation. My complaint, however, is that the Government have not put it into operation. It seems to me that a continuation of this Measure every year is not fulfilling its purpose merely as a protection or as a possible threat. On the contrary, it must be well known to the Government that there are traders in this country suffering very severely owing to the restrictions in other countries, which make our trade with them in some cases almost impossible. I do not want to go into long details. It is sufficient to say that the position of those who have to trade, for example, with Spain is almost impossible to-day, and if this Measure is intended, as I understand is the case,


to be a substitute for some system of import restrictions, then I suggest that it is high time the Government seriously considered putting this Measure into real operation.
I drew the attention of the President of the Board of Trade yesterday to the position in which traders in this country find themselves in connection with the export of British manufactured goods to Denmark. We have a trade agreement with Denmark under which they are supposed to take, speaking very roughly, an equivalent quantity of our goods, but it is found in practice that they are taking almost entirely raw materials from us and manufactured goods in very large quantities from Germany. That may not be a legal evasion of our agreement with Denmark, but it is in fact an operation under the agreement which is making the position of our manufacturers almost impossible. These are matters which, it seems to me, are not being dealt with merely by holding over other nations a threat that a clearing house can be established, and I wish to point out to the Government that some of us complain, not that the Government have done something, but that they have not done something. I think it is worth their consideration, in continuing this Measure, which I support, whether they should not now begin seriously to think, in cases such as I have mentioned, of putting it into operation, because it seems to me perfectly clear that we are not getting a fair deal with several countries. I have mentioned two only, because I do not want to detain the Committee, but something more than the threat of a clearing house is required, so that British manufacturers shall be able to have a fair field with those of other countries in such circumstances as I have stated.

6.36 p.m.

Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCE: Without agreeing with all that fell from the lips of the Minister, and still less with what fell from the lips of the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne), I view this proposal as fairly harmless and ask leave to withdraw my Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

SCHEDULE.—(Part I.)

6.37 p.m.

Mr. KELLY: I beg to move, in page 3, to leave out lines 35 to 38.
This is that portion of the Schedule which deals with the Employment of Young Persons and Children Act, 1920. Under that Act it was arranged that it should be possible for young people of 16 years of age and over to be employed in various industries between the hours of six in the morning and ten in the evening. It was laid down there that there should be a joint application on the part of the employers and those working in those places, and that some kind of vote should be taken. I do not want now to say all that I would like to say about the method of those votes, how they were taken and the absence of secrecy when such votes were being taken in the various establishments, but that Act laid it down that the provisions should operate for five years, from 1920 to 1925. We are now in 1935, and each year since then we have had this Measure brought up to be continued, so that these young people might be compelled to work at those unearthly hours in the morning and at night. I hope this House is going to pay a greater regard to the young people in this country than to allow employers to exploit them and to place them at a disadvantage by working them under the conditions operating where the two-shift system is adopted.
There have been some 2,000 orders made since the Act came into operation, and in fact some 400 orders have been agreed to by the Home Office since the 30th June of last year. We have the spectacle in this country that while we have a great many adult men out of employment, we are working our young people under conditions such as those I have mentioned. I remember one case in particular of a firm near Birkenhead operating the two-shift system, which compelled young girls of 16 to 18 to be crossing Liverpool at four in the morning, in order that they might reach their work at six, and those who were on the second turn, which terminated at 10 p.m., having to cross Liverpool at midnight and even later in order to reach their homes.
That is one side of it, but there is an even worse side, and that is that this prevents these young people from taking advantage of the educational facilities which we are providing in all parts of the country. They are denied the opportunity, first of all, because they are unfitted by reason of this continuous effort for the eight hours or even a little less than that when they are working. On the morning turn they are certainly not fit to take advantage of these educational facilities which are given in the evening, because they are compelled to be out at four or five in the morning in order to reach their work at six, and those on the second turn have no opportunity at all, because they are forced to work during the hours when the classes are held. It was worse than that, I admit, when the Act was introduced, because this country thought so little of its young people that it actually permitted that those below 16 might be compelled to work during the conditions of the two-shift system. I am confining myself this evening largely to the interests of the young people, but the same observations apply to the women.
I expect it will be urged by the Home Office that if this Amendment is carried, it will put out of operation all those permits which they have given for the working of the two shifts. If there are employers who cannot find a method of conducting their manufacture or production without exploiting young people in this way, when we have such a great reserve army of labour unemployed at this time, it is time that they considered whether those engaged in managerial functions in their establishments ought to be continued in them. I ask the House, for the sake of those young people and for the sake of that education to which even the other side of the House renders lip service, in asking for an educated democracy, to agree with us that this two-shift system shall not operate after the 31st December of this year, and that we shall not give the opportunity to the Home Office to permit this Act to continue in operation for a further 12 months. I hope the House will on this occasion do the right thing by the young people of this country.

6.45 p.m.

Mr. RHYS DAVIES: My hon. Friend has tried to do what I have been trying

to do for seven or eight years. We believe in continuity of policy in this matter, and consequently we propose to take this Amendment to a Division. That may probably wake up the Government to their responsibilities—and they take some waking up. We have objected to this temporary Act of Parliament on the grounds that my hon. Friend has put so well, but things have changed since our last opposition to this proposal. Early this year a Departmental Committee was set up to inquire whether these temporary provisions should be made permanent. There were representatives of all parties on that Committee. The Committee reported in due course and the Government have decided to bring in a Bill, the Second Reading of which is to be taken next Tuesday, to make permanent the provisions of this Act instead of continuing them in the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill. I propose, therefore, to keep my powder and shot for a better occasion when we shall oppose the proposed Bill as we have always opposed the temporary provisions. We shall take this Amendment to a Division, and, within a fortnight of the coming of the Government, we hope to defeat them.

6.47 p.m.

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd): Hon. Members are aware that hon. Gentlemen opposite have for many years objected to this Act in the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill, but I think it is true to say that we are debating this subject this year in somewhat different circumstances from those in which it has been discussed in past years. This Act has been renewed year after year in the Expiring Laws Bill, but that was not considered by the Government to be altogether satisfactory. Last year, therefore, the Home Secretary appointed a Departmental Committee to consider the whole question whether the two-shift system should continue, and, if it should, whether it should be modified in certain ways or not. It was a strong Committee and went into a great many of the subjects mentioned by the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. KELLY: I gave evidence there.

Mr. LLOYD: After the Committee had considered all the material, including the evidence of the hon. Gentleman, it came to the conclusion that the system should


continue with certain modifications. As the Prime Minister announced to-day, a Bill will be introduced next Tuesday for that purpose. Therefore, I think hon. Members will probably agree that the best opportunity for a complete and general discussion on the system of two shifts will come on that Bill next week. It might be asked why, if that be the case, it is necessary to include this Act in the Expiring Laws Bill now. The reason is that the proposed Bill, even if the Government were more successful with it than the hon. Gentleman opposite hopes cannot be passed into law before Christmas. To avoid the dislocation which must occur if that be the case, we ask the Committee to include this Act in the Bill again. I would point out that if by any chance the Amendment were accepted, the whole of the orders under the Act under which many factories are working, and under which some 40,000 women and young persons are in employment at the present time, would become illegal on the 31st of this month. I think that the Committee will agree that even if they wish to stop this system working, it would not be the right way to do it,

after it has been in operation for many years, by a fortnight's notice.

Mr. RHYS DAVIES: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman does not want to mislead the Committee into believing that if we carried the Amendment 40,000 women and young persons would be out of employment. They would go on to normal employment without working a two-shift system.

Mr. LLOYD: I think it would be true to say that if this system of employment became illegal on 31st December, as it would if the Amendment were carried, it would mean tremendous dislocation in all these factories, and would mean that thousands of these people would be thrown out of work. In many factories it is undoubtedly the case that their employment depends upon the fact that employers are able to utilise the machinery much more continuously than if they were only on day work, and they would not be able to continue if this system were not allowed.

Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Schedule."

The Committee divided: Ayes, 203; Noes, 99.

Division No. 11.]
AYES.
[6.51 p.m.


Acland, R. T. D. (Barnstaple)
Clarke, F. E.
Ganzonl, Sir J.


Agnew, Lieut.-Comdr. P. G.
Clarry, R. G.
George, Megan Lloyd (Anglesey)


Albery, I. J.
Clydesdale, Marquess of
Gledhill, G.


Allen, Lt.-Col. J. Sandeman (B'kn'hd)
Cobb, Sir C. S.
Gluckstein, L. H.


Apsley, Lord
Collins, Rt. Hon. Sir G. P.
Goodman, Col. A. W.


Aske, Sir R. W.
Colville, Lt.-Col. D. J.
Graham Captain A. C. (Wirral)


Assheton, R.
Cook, T. R. A. M. (Norfolk, N.)
Grattan-Doyle, Sir N.


Atholl, Duchess of
Cooper, Rt. Hn. A. Duff (W'st'r S. G'gs)
Gridley, Sir A. B.


Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley
Cooper, Rt. Hn. T. M. (E'nburgh, W.)
Grimston, R. V.


Balfour, G. (Hampstead)
Courtauld, Major J. S.
Guest, Hon. I (Brecon and Radnor)


Barclay-Harvey, C. M.
Crookshank, Capt. H. F. C.
Guest, Maj. Hon. O. (C'mb'rw'll, N. W.)


Baxter, A. Beverley
Crossley, A. C.
Guinness, T. L. E. B.


Beauchamp, Sir B. C.
Crowder, J. F. E.
Gunston, Capt. D. W.


Beaumont, Hon. R. E. B. (Portsm'h)
Cruddas, Col. B.
Guy, J. C. M.


Beit, Sir A. L.
Culverwell, C. T.
Hacking, Rt. Hon. D. H.


Birchall, Sir J. D.
Davies, Major G. F. (Yeovil)
Hamilton, Sir G. C.


Blair, Sir R.
Denman, Hon. R. D.
Hanbury, Sir C.


Blindell, J.
Denville, A.
Harvey, G.


Bower, Comdr. R. T.
Dorman-Smith, Major R. H.
Heilgers, Captain F. F. A.


Boyce, H. Leslie
Duckworth, W. R. (Moss Side)
Hepburn, P. G. T. Buchan-


Bracken, B.
Dugdale, Major T. L.
Hepworth, J.


Brocklebank, C. E. R.
Duncan, J. A. L.
Herbert, Major J. A. (Monmouth)


Brown, Rt. Hon. E. (Leith)
Eales, J. F.
Holmes, J. S.


Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C. (Newbury)
Eastwood, J. F.
Hope, Captain Hon. A. O. J.


Browne, A. C. (Belfast, W.)
Eckersley, P. T.
Hopkinson, A.


Bull, B. B.
Elliot, Rt. Hon. W. E.
Horsbrugh, Florence


Burgin, Dr. E. L.
Ellis, Sir G.
Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hack., N.)


Burton, Col. H. W.
Emmott, C. E. G. C.
Inskip, Rt. Hon. Sir T. W. H.


Butler, R. A.
Emrys-Evans, P. V.
James, Wing-Commander A. W.


Cartland, J. R. H.
Entwistle, C. F.
Joel, D. J. B.


Cary, R. A.
Errington, E.
Jones, Sir G. W. H. (S'k N'w'gt'n)


Cayzer, Sir H. R. (Portsmouth, S.)
Evans, Capt. A. (Cardiff, S.)
Law, sir A. J. (High Peak)


Chair, S. S. de
Evans, D. O. (Cardigan)
Law, R. K. (Hull, S. W.)


Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. N. (Edgb't'n)
Fleming, E. L.
Leckie, J. A.


Channon, H.
Fraser, Capt. Sir I.
Leech, Dr. J. W.


Chapman, A. (Rutherglen)
Freemantle, Sir F. E.
Levy, T.


Chapman, Sir S. (Edinburgh, S.)
Furness, S. N.
Llewellin, Lieut.-Col. J. J.


Chorlton, A. E. L.
Fyfe, D. P. M.
Lloyd, G. W.




Locker-Lampson, Comdr. O. S.
Plugge, L. F.
Spens, W. P.


Loder, Captain Hon. J. de V.
Ramsay, Captain A. H. M.
Stanley, Rt. Hon. Lord (Fylde)


Loftus, P. C.
Ramsbotham, H.
Storey, S.


Lovat-Fraser, J. A.
Rankin, R.
Stourton, Hon. J. J.


MacAndrew, Lt.-Col. Sir C. G.
Rathbone, J. R. (Bodmin)
Strauss, E. A. (Southwark, N.)


Macdonald, Capt. P. (Isle of Wight)
Rayner, Major R. H.
Strauss, H. G. (Norwich)


McKie, J. H.
Reed, A. C. (Exeter)
Strickland, Captain W. F.


Macnamara, Capt. J. R. J.
Reid, W. Allan (Derby)
Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)


Macquisten, F. A.
Renter, J. R.
Sueter, Rear-Admiral Sir M. F.


Makins, Brig.-Gen. E.
Rickards, G. W. (Skipton)
Sutcliffe, H.


Margesson, Capt Rt. Hon. H. D. R.
Ropner, Colonel L.
Thomson, Sir J. D. W.


Mason, Lt.-Col. Hon. G. K. M.
Ross, Major Sir R. D. (L'nderry)
Train, J.


Maxwell, S. A.
Ross Taylor, W. (Woodbridge)
Tryon, Major Rt. Hon. G. C.


Meller, Sir R. J. (Mitcham)
Rowlands, G.
Wakefield, W. W.


Mills, Major J. D. (New Forest)
Russell, A. West (Tynemouth)
Walker-Smith, Sir J.


Moore, Lieut.-Col. T. C. R.
Salmon, Sir I.
Wallace, Captain Euan


Morris, O. T. (Cardiff, E.)
Salt, E. W.
Wardlaw-Milne, Sir J. S.


Morris-Jones, Dr. J. H.
Sandys, E. D.
Waterhouse, Captain C.


Morrison, W. S. (Cirencester)
Savery, Servington
Wedderburn, H. J. S.


Muirhead, Lt.-Col. A. J.
Scott, Lord William
Williams, H. G. (Croydon, S.)


Nall, Sir J.
Seely, Sir H. M.
Wilson, Lt.-Col. Sir A. T. (Hitchin)


Neven-Spence, Maj. B. H.
Selley, H. R.
Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel G.


Orr-Ewing, I. L.
Shakespeare, G. H.
Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl


Owen, Major G.
Shaw, Captain W. T. (Forfar)
Wise, A. R.


Palmer, G. E. H.
Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir J. A.
Womersley, Sir W. J.


Patrick, C. M.
Smith, L. W. (Hallam)
Wood, Rt. Hon. Sir Kingsley


Peake, O.
Smith, Sir R. W. (Aberdeen)
Young, A. S. L. (Partick)


Percy, Rt. Hon. Lord E.
Smithers, Sir W.



Perkins, W. R. D.
Somervell, Sir D. B. (Crewe)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Peters, Dr. S. J.
Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)
Lieut.-Colonel Sir A. Lambert Ward


Pilkington, R.
Spender-Clay Lt.-CI. Rt. Hn. H. H.
and Commander Southby.




NOES.


Adams, D. M. (Poplar, S.)
Jenkins, A. (Pontypool)
Price, M. P.


Anderson, F. (Whitehaven)
Jenkins, Sir W. (Neath)
Quibell, J. D.


Attlee, Rt. Hon. C. R.
Johnston, Rt. Hon. T.
Ritson, J.


Benson, G.
Jones, A. C. (Shipley)
Robinson, W. A. (St. Helens)


Bevan, A.
Jones, J. J. (Silvertown)
Rowson, G.


Broad, F. A.
Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)
Salter, Dr. A.


Brown, C. (Mansfield)
Kelly, W. T.
Sanders, W. S.


Buchanan, G.
Kennedy, Rt. Hon. T.
Sexton, T. M.


Burke, W. A.
Kirby, B. V.
Shinwell, E.


Chater, D.
Kirkwood, D.
Silverman, S. S.


Cluse, W. S.
Lathan, G.
Smith, Ben (Rotherhithe)


Clynes, Rt. Hon. J. R.
Lawson, J. J.
Smith, Rt. Hon. H. B. Lees- (K'ly)


Daggar, G.
Leach, W.
Smith, T. (Normanton)


Dalton, H.
Lee, F.
Sorensen, R. W.


Davies, D. L. (Pontypridd)
Leonard, W.
Stewart, W. J. (H'ght'n-le-Sp'ng)


Davies, R. J. (Westhoughton)
Leslie, J. R.
Strauss, G. R. (Lambeth, N.)


Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)
Logan, D. G.
Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)


Day, H.
McEntee, V. La T.
Thorne, W.


Dunn, E. (Rother Valley)
McGhee, H. G.
Thurtle, E.


Ede, J. C.
Maclean, N.
Tinker, J. J.


Fletcher, Lt.-Comdr. R. T. H.
MacNeill, Weir, L.
Viant, S. P.


Frankel, D.
Markiew, E.
Walkden, A. G.


Gardner, B. W.
Marshall, F.
Walker, J.


Garro-Jones, G. M.
Maxton, J.
Watkins, F. C.


Green, W. H. (Deptford)
Messer, F.
Watson, W. McL.


Greenwood, Rt. Hon. A.
Montague, F.
Wedgwood, Rt. Hon. J. C.


Grenfell, D. R.
Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.)
Whiteley, W.


Griffiths, G. A. (Hemsworth)
Naylor, T. E.
Wilson, C. H. (Attercliffe)


Hall, J. H. (Whitechapel)
Oliver, G. H.
Withers, Sir J. J.


Hardie, G. D.
Paling, W.
Woods, G. S. (Finsbury)


Henderson, A. (Kingswinford)
Parker, H. J. H.
Young, Sir R. (Newton)


Holland, A.
Parkinson, J. A.



Hopkin, D.
Pethick-Lawrence, F. W.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Jagger, J.
Potts, J.
Mr. Groves and Mr. Mathers.


Question put, and agreed to.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this Schedule be the Schedule to the Bill."

7.0 p.m.

Lieut.-Colonel Sir ARNOLD WILSON: May I very briefly express the hope that it is the last occasion on which we shall see a Wireless Telegraphy Act, 1904, a part thereof? We have made several attempts to get a fresh comprehensive

Act. It is a fact that to-day, I gather, many of our international treaties and the charter of the British Broadcasting Corporation depend on an Act which can only be continued from year to year. Now that the Ullswater Committee is nearing its conclusions there are strong grounds for making a really comprehensive Act which will cover the whole ground and keep out of the Expiring


Laws Continuance Act a Bill which is of such tremendous importance not only to this country but to the whole world. It is rather undignified that such a vast amount of industry and international agreement as depend on this Act should be subject to termination at a few months notice.

7.2 p.m.

The POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Major Tryon): I can only say in reply to my hon. Friend that I am very glad to have had the advantage of listening to his views on this point. As the House knows, a Committee under the Chairmanship of Lord Ullswater has been considering this question since last April. They are still sitting to-day, but I understand that before the end of the year we shall have their report, and we shall then be better able to judge.

Preamble agreed to.

Bill reported, without Amendment; read the Third time, and passed.

Orders of the Day — UNEMPLOYMENT ASSISTANCE (TEMPORARY PROVISIONS) (EXTENSION) [MONEY].

Considered in Committee under Standing Order No. 69.

[Captain BOURNE in the Chair.]

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That it is expedient to extend until a date not later than the thirty-first day of March, nineteen hundred and thirty-six, the period in respect of which grants are to be paid to local authorities out of moneys provided by Parliament under section one of the Unemployment Assistance (Temporary Provisions) (No. 2) Act, 1935."—(King's Recommendation signified.)—[Sir K. Wood.]

7.5 p.m.

The MINISTER of HEALTH (Sir Kingsley Wood): This Financial Resolution is necessary in the following circumstances. The Unemployment Assistance (Temporary Provisions) No. 2 Act made provision for grants from 1st March, 1935, to 30th September, 1935, placing public assistance authorities as nearly as might be in the financial position they would have occupied had the second appointed day not been postponed from 1st March, 1935. The second appointed day, as hon. Members know, is the day

from which public assistance authorities are to be relieved of, and the Unemployment Assistance Board are to assume, responsibility for the assistance of those able-bodied unemployed within the scope of Part 2 of the Unemployment Act, 1934, for whom the board did not already become responsible on the first appointed day. This Resolution is necessary in order to give the necessary authority for the introduction of a Bill to continue these grants for the further period from 1st October, 1935, to 31st March, 1936, or to the day hereafter appointed as the second appointed day, whichever is the earlier. The method of determining the grants will be the same as that provided for in the Act of 1935, and it is estimated that the annual rate of grants will be approximately £4,000,000 for England and Wales and £1,625,000 for Scotland.

Mr. BUCHANAN: Thank you very much.

Sir K. WOOD: If the transfer of responsibility from the public assistance authorities to the Unemployment Assistance Board shall not have been effected by 1st April, 1936, further legislation will be necessary.

Mr. BUCHANAN: Do you anticipate that?

Sir K. WOOD: I think it is hardly necessary for me, unless hon. Members particularly desire it, to describe again the methods of calculation and matters of that kind. I think that the chief thing that hon. Members, will be interested in is what has been the effect of the temporary provisions in the period which occurred up to 30th September, 1935. I had the opportunity a little while ago of reading the Debate on the Second Reading of the Bill before it became an Act, and doubts were expressed as to what the effect of the provisions would be, and fears were expressed, of which I do not complain, because it is the duty of the Opposition to express fear, that somehow or other the local authorities would be very badly hit by the proposals. I am very glad to give the Committee an account this evening as far as we are able to do so to-day. I give the account on provisional figures which have been obtained from local authorities. It is estimated that the arrangement made under that Act resulted in the local authorities being


some £400,000 better off than they would have been if the second appointed day had not been postponed.

Mr. BUCHANAN: Does that include Scotland?

Sir K. WOOD: I am dealing with the whole situation. Whether that will be the case when the whole period up to 31st March next is taken it is, of course, clearly impossible to say at this moment, and there are grounds for thinking that in some areas which have suffered heavily from unemployment there may be an improvement in certain cases, and I instance one, the case of Sunderland, which has lost slightly under this particular proposal. That is one of the few local authorities where expenditure has been slightly in excess of the grant, and where unemployment has fallen from 26,392 in April to 23,200 in November. I have been considering as the Committee will expect me to do what could be said, what undertaking I could give, in respect of those few authorities which have lost slightly. I have had in mind the many representations that have been made, particularly by hon. Members who represent divisions in Liverpool and other local authorities in the country.
The associations of local authorities, with whom we have discussed this matter and who, as one might anticipate, are very well satisfied with the position, have asked me to give consideration especially to those areas where the grant ends in a state of circumstances where certain local authorities may have lost, and I have given attention to their request. It is a small loss, but it is right that their case should be considered. So far as these areas are concerned—there are very few—the figures are purely provisional, and they may be altered as a result of the unemployment experience of the next few months, but an opportunity will occur to ascertain the definite position when we come to consider the proposed legislation referred to in the King's Speech in relation to this particular matter. If there should then be any cases of local authorities which can properly be said to have suffered as a result of the arrangement, although of course I cannot undertake to give a blank cheque to make good any loss which any local authority may have suffered, I do undertake to examine sympathetically

hard cases with a view to making special provision for them in such legislation. I do not think that the position is unsatisfactory as far as the proposals are concerned, because the great bulk of the local authorities, far from suffering as a result, have had a substantial sum in excess. I am reminded that the figures I have given refer to England and Wales.

7.13 p.m.

Mr. SILVERMAN: Would the right hon. Gentleman tell me whether I am interpreting his implied undertaking correctly? Is it that he undertakes to make up to local authorities which can prove a loss the amount of their loss so far as they can prove it to his satisfaction?

Mr. BUCHANAN: Can the right hon. Gentleman say anything about the figures for Scotland?

Sir K. WOOD: The Secretary of State for Scotland will intervene in the discussion at a later stage. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Silverman) happens to belong to the same profession as I do—the lower branch of the profession; it gets lower fees.

Mr. MAXTON: But more often.

Sir K. WOOD: The hon. Gentleman has put a question to me in a form which I would prefer to answer by referring him to the very careful statement I have made. I think, as a matter of fact, that the few local authorities concerned will be satisfied with the undertaking I have given. I would like to sum up by saying that as far as this Financial Resolution is concerned the bulk of the local authorities have not done badly out of the transaction. There are a few others who have suffered a little—a comparatively small sum—but I have no doubt that they will be quite prepared to accept the undertaking I have given, and that things will end up satisfactorily so far as they are concerned.

Lieut.-Colonel SANDEMAN ALLEN: If this Resolution is not carried, will the local authorities get their money?

Sir K. WOOD: This Resolution must be carried in order that we may reimburse the local authorities.

Mr. POTTS: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell me, from memory, whether


he has under consideration the county borough of Barnsley, where the expenditure for the current year amounts to some £20,000 extra?

Sir K. WOOD: Barnsley is one of the places which, under these proposals, will receive a not unsatisfactory sum.

7.18 p.m.

Mr. ARTHUR GREENWOOD: We do not look upon the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Health as the chief nigger in this particular wood pile. He is just the residuary legatee. He has inherited this very dirty piece of work from his predecessors, and what I have to say is not intended in the least to be a reflection on him, though I am bound to add that he was a little disingenuous in his opening speech. He explained that the Financial Resolution was necessary "under the following circumstances," but, of course, the chief circumstances was the sheer and utter incompetence of the last Government to deal with this problem. The right hon. Gentleman—I can understand his motives—glossed over the truth, but it is very important that the truth should be told. There are Members here now who do not remember the Debates on this subject before the right hon. Gentleman was Minister of Health and when he was making a success of the Post Office—an easier job than he now has. The Government are in a very undignified position, because had it not been for the mess and muddle of the Regulations under the Unemployment Act, 1934, we should not have seen the right hon. Gentleman standing there tonight wasting important time at the beginning of the first Session of a new Parliament.
It is important that we should have in our minds a full picture of the situation, and I want to carry the minds of hon. Members back to a statement made by the right hon. Gentleman's predecessor as Minister of Health, who now, alas, has gone to the obscurity of the other place, when he said on 12th April, 1933, amid acclamation, that the able-bodied unemployed were to become a burden upon national funds. Hon. Members opposite, who up to that time had believed that it was very good to punish the unemployed under the Poor Law, hailed this as a great reform, and we on this side wondered what kind of spiritual change

had taken place in the hearts and minds of the Government. Then we found that we had been "had." We found that the Government had not taken 100 per cent. responsibility. I am sorry that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is not here, because he has tried to disprove what I have said, but so far without making any impression whatever on my mind or on the minds of my hon. Friends. It is still true that local authorities are being left with part of the responsibility and that the hope held out to them did not materialise.
We had one delay after another in dealing with this matter. In the King's Speech in 1932 we were informed that the Government meant to deal with the whole problem of the treatment of the unemployed. The rest of 1932 passed, and 1933 passed, and then, in another King's Speech, we were told there was to be legislation, and a Bill was introduced. Within a few days that Bill was withdrawn and another took its place—it was not substantially different, but the procedure showed the slip-shod workmanship of the Government. After six weary months of debate in the House the Bill got on the Statute Book. The point about this Resolution to-night has not been explained by the right hon. Gentleman. His mind is still too full of his Post Office. He must re-adjust his point of view and recollect the sort of things that happened during the last Parliament.
Under Part II of the Unemployment Act, which purported to transfer the maintenance of the able-bodied unemployed to national funds and a national organisation, it was laid down that the Government had to decide upon an appointed day, when those responsibilities should cease to be the responsibilities of local authorities. It was commonly understood that local authorities were to get rid of those responsibilities in October, 1934. I know that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has said at that Box that he never said any such thing, and it may be that he did not, but the art of subtle suggestion may have been responsible for convincing the local authorities that it really was intended to have the appointed day in October, 1934. In the official gazette of the County Councils Association for May, 1934, it was said that 42 county councils had framed their estimates on the assumption


that Part II of the Bill would come into force on 1st October, 1934, and that it was estimated that unless this expectation materialised the county councils—not the county boroughs—would be called upon to provide between them an additional sum of nearly £300,000 for the second half of the year. At a meeting of the Parliamentary and General Purposes Committee of the County Councils Association held in February this year, according to their official gazette,
The Secretary again stated that as regards the date of the second appointed day, so far as the local authorities were concerned the discussions had taken place on the distinct understanding that 1st October, 1934, would be fixed for this puprpose.
When first I raised this question in the House it roused a certain amount of indignation among hon. Members opposite. When we had a debate on 12th February, the day before the discussion from which I have just quoted, this is what was said—I was speaking at the time:
The Government have treated local authorities in this matter very badly. They were led to believe that the appointed day, when they would be relieved of 60 per cent. of the cost of the able-bodied unemployed, would be the 1st October last year.
Sir JOHN WALLACE: By whom?
Sir LUKE THOMSON: This is very important. Will the right hon. Gentleman point to any time or period when the Government gave any indication of the kind?
The hon. and gallant Member for Tiverton (Lieut.-Colonel Acland-Troyte), who spoke as one who was present at the County Councils Association meeting, said then:
The question was considered by the Government and the County Councils Association, and 1st October was mentioned."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 12th February, 1935; cols. 1785–6, Vol. 297.]
Speaking later in the Debate the hon. and gallant Member for Tiverton said:
It will be remembered that it was originally intended that the appointed day should be 1st October last year."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 12th February, 1935; col. 1851, Vol. 297.]
That was specific. It has never been denied. [HON. MEMBERS "Oh!"] It has never been denied authoritatively that the suggestion was put into the minds of the local authorities. It is extraordinary that 42 county councils should budget for 1st October as the date when they were to be relieved of responsibilities if nobody had instilled that date into their minds. They have not invented it,

and the hon. and gallant Member for Tiverton and others have said that 1st October was used as a basis of discussion. But, without any consultation with the local authorities, the appointed day was fixed for 1st March this year, and for six more months the local authorities were left carrying a burden which they had had reason to believe was to be taken off their shoulders.
What happened in the interval? By March the whole business was in a state of chaos. In February the late Government appeared on the Treasury Bench in white sheets, the most abject spectacle ever seen in the House of Commons since the War. They had launched their Regulations under Part II of the Unemployment Act, and then had to come down here to say that they would not work, that they were a mistake and please could they have a stand-still arrangement? As a result the Minister of Labour was transferred to a "better 'ole." He went to the relative security and seclusion of the Board of Education. That was the scheme which was described by Lord Rushcliffe, then Minister of Labour, as the greatest piece of social legislation for a generation. The position became so confused that the scheme broke down and the appointed day could not operate even from March. Therefore the Government said: "We will have a standstill arrangement." We did not invent the term. It was invented by the then Minister of Labour and was a very good term for a stand-still Government. The Government are still standing still on this question, and that is the reason for this Money Resolution. The Government are in the same position as they were in at the beginning of this year, when they came in sackcloth and ashes and said they were very sorry for their Unemployment Regulations.
The Government are now in the humiliating position of having to carry on the existing arrangement with the local authorities. The Government knew in July that there were going to be no unemployment regulations by the end of September. The Minister of Labour told us so in the House. He knew perfectly well there was not going to be any and the Government knew, and it was their duty to introduce this Bill last July and not to leave it over to this Parliament. What is the position now? For nearly two and a half months, hard-pressed local


authorities have been footing the Bill and the Government have not been able to pay them any money. It is all right to pay the money retrospectively now, but the Government have treated the local authorities very shabbily. They knew that they would be in this position and they could equally have spent the time on this Bill in July as to waste time on it now.
That is not all. It is true, as the right hon. Gentleman has said, that many local authorities will not be any worse off, although he admits that some are. He has made the astonishing admission that because the Government made a mess of this business, local authorities in England and Wales are £400,000 better off than they would have been if the second appointed day had come into operation. What does that mean? It means that the substance of the Act is bad. The Minister is trying to take credit now for generosity—not arising out of any desire for generosity but because his Government made a mess, got into a particular kind of hole which I will not describe but which the Secretary of State for the Colonies always describes very effectively. Now they come here and preen themselves and say: "Really, we have done better for the local authorities by making a muddle of the Act than we should have done if we had carried the Act into operation." That is an extraordinary position.
The right hon. Gentleman talked about examining sympathetically all the hard cases and asked my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Silverman) to look very carefully into his statement. There are cities in this country which are all right. The right hon. Gentleman said that Barnsley was but he knows that even in spite of this additional £400,000, which is apparently going to many places that do not need it, there are towns in this country where the burden of maintaining the able-bodied unemployed is even now increasing. The right hon. Gentleman did not mention those towns, but I will mention four of them: Liverpool, Sunderland, Tynemouth and Wigan. They are not the only ones. They are towns which have been very hard hit. That only proves that the basis of the original Act

is wrong, and the advantage—this profit, so to speak, of £400,000—that some local authorities are getting, only shows to the Committee, if the Committee will exercise independent judgment on the matter, how bad the original Act was.
I think we must press the right hon. Gentleman to do more than examine hard cases sympathetically. It is easy on that side of the Committee to be sympathetic. Any Minister can always examine cases sympathetically. The point is, does he mean to do anything? Does he mean to put some of these areas, which are still suffering, notwithstanding this grant, into the same position as the other areas, some of which appear to be making a profit out of this marvellous arrangement of the Government? I hope that the right hon. Gentleman, or the Parliamentary Secretary, will tell us before night is over whether he is going to deliver the goods. It is due to those local authorities who are suffering, not because of any moral delinquency on the part of the councils but because of the exceptionally difficult circumstances in which they find themselves.
I come to my last point of substance. The Act was intended as a great final piece of legislation to deal with the unemployed. I wish new Members would refer back and read the most fulsome adulation which was showered on the Bill when it was introduced—chiefly by its authors, who covered themselves with praise on the Second and Third Readings. It is not permanent and it is not properly working, at least as regards Part II. We are in the astonishing position, as regards the major part of the Act which deals with the transfer of authority and responsibility from the local authorities to the State—

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: The right hon. Gentleman is going into the details of the whole of the principal Act. Under this Resolution we are dealing only with a very small part of it, and the Debate had better be confined to that.

Mr. GREENWOOD: On this one financial point we have had the most specific financial arrangements, not contemplated in the Act, financial arrangements which are now going to operate for another six months, presumably.

Mr. BUCHANAN: Six years.

Mr. GREENWOOD: Or six years, whatever it may be. It may operate for only six months. In 1937, the whole of this financial basis is to be considered again, which means that two years after the Act has been put on the Statute Book we still shall not have got down to the financial basis, which has to be tried out before there can be any proper and reasonable adjustment in 1937. That is treating the Committee and the unemployed very unfairly. Nobody on these benches or on any other benches can oppose the Government in this tardy act of justice to the local authority. That is obvious, but it is due to the Committee that we should make a protest against this very tardy action on the part of the Government, who are tidying up the work which was left by the old Government, and which could very well have been done before the General Election. We are protesting also against the inordinate delay in facing up to the primary problem of our time. Although we do not intend to vote against the Financial Resolution—we clearly could not do it—we shall continue to make our emphatic protest against the Government's treatment of this important problem.

7.41 p.m.

Lieut.-Colonel SANDEMAN-ALLEN: I will only detain the Committee for a moment in order to make a point quite clear to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Greenwood), who complained so bitterly about the date of the second appointed day. I would bring to the notice of the Committee a letter dated 24th April, 1934, from the County Councils Association to the Treasury. The letter contains the following phrase:
Admittedly the Association has not received any intimation either written or verbal, that the Bill would come into force on the 1st Ocober next.
That is from the County Councils Association and it deprives the right hon. Gentleman of the view—

Mr. GREENWOOD: May I ask the hon. and gallant Gentleman whether he is aware that many members of the City Council of Liverpool hold that view?

Lieut.-Colonel SANDEMAN-ALLEN: I am very well aware of that fact, but this letter is from the Association and there

is no ground for anybody to hold that view. That has been stated from time to time, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer has quoted chapter and verse in this House, and I have listened to him. I am not one of those talkers on the Bill of whom the right hon. Gentleman showed such expert knowledge, but I hold very strongly that the Government must very shortly take over 100 per cent. of the able-bodied unemployed. There was no pledge that the second appointed day would be in October, 1934. If people have jumped to conclusions falsely, that is their own fault. It is clear from the letter which I have read to the Committee that the Association realise that they have no definite ground on which to base their assumption.

7.43 p.m.

Mr. LOGAN: I have never been able to verify that particular date. When we were budgeting in Liverpool, the Leader of the Tory party made it known to the Council that in his mind the date was July and not October. When the Act was passed and the budget was being taken, we certainly dealt with October, 1934. Evidently the Council had received, as they thought, not official information but an intimation that as regards that area they would be perfectly right in their budgeting. My object in rising is to ask here and now, in regard to the problems which have been put forward by the Minister, what the Government intend to do. I am not concerned whether the date be October, 1934, or not, or whether there is to be any further procrastination. I ant at a loss to understand how any huge corporation, or even hon. Members who represent Liverpool, can be quite easy as to the financial position of Liverpool. In regard to these unemployment assistance temporary provisions, I am compelled to refer to our position in that city. Last night it was my unpleasant experience to listen to a maiden speech in which the suggestion was indicated that all in the City of Liverpool was very delightful. I want to point out how we stand with regard to this matter. The figures that I shall give are indisputable, and I am sure that hon. Members who come from Liverpool will have to agree with me that in Liverpool our position financially as regards this matter is absolutely unsatisfactory.
We are asked to assent to the postponement of the obligation which the Government undertook to take over the able-bodied unemployed. There has been procrastination since October, 1934, was suggested as the date. It is now proposed that it should be the 31st March, 1936. There is no finality. When is it going to end? It would appear that this is going to be a hardy annual year by year, until at last it becomes part and parcel of the unemployment problem. What I have to say is in reference only to the City of Liverpool; I am not going to deal with other parts of the country as to which I have no information; but I want the Minister to understand that my figures are absolutely correct. If there is any dispute as to their accuracy, let it come from the Front Bench.
Our expenditure in respect of able-bodied unemployed in the year 1931 was £293,000; in 1932 it was £436,000; in 1933, £646,000; in 1934, £775,000, and in 1935, £1,093,566; and we are now budgeting for an expenditure of £1,335,000 in 1936. Is it not strange, when we hear maiden speeches in this House such as we heard last night, that, while in 1931 this burden upon us was £293,000, to-day its amount is £1,335,000? If anyone coming from that city on the Mersey has the impression that everything in the garden there is lovely, and that we must vote with a Tory Government for postponement, I am not in agreement with any such policy, and I must voice the collective opinion of all parties in the City of Liverpool against such a policy. Liverpool has denounced this procrastination. It demands, as far as the able-bodied unemployed under Part II of the Act are concerned, that they should be totally taken over without any ambiguity whatever, and we feel from a business point of view that unless this is done it will be a complete stranglehold over the position of the City of Liverpool. No hon. Member from Liverpool, and there are eight in this House on the side of the National Government, can get up in the House and dispute anything that I am saying on these points, and, what is more, they are bound by the unanimous vote of their party in Liverpool to vote with the Opposition on this matter. That being so, I come here in unity—not on party policy of course—with my colleagues from Liverpool to see that that city on the Mersey, as one of the areas

that have been very badly hit, is properly dealt with.
I feel that financial arrangements such as those now proposed are unbusinesslike. This stand-still arrangement, and the muddle that was made in regard to the Election, were part of a trick that the Government dare not bring before the electorate until after the Election was over. Had this policy of procrastination been pursued, or had the Government been deliberate in bringing forward their programme in regard to the regulations, the General Election would have assumed a different aspect. Municipalities all over the country would have voiced their indignation against the system of procrastination that is now going on, and I feel that I must express the indignation that has been expressed deeply by all parties in Liverpool. This is not a political question, and I take umbrage at my colleagues not backing up the policy of the City of Liverpool, because that city has sent practically an ultimatum to its representatives in the House of Commons to press this Government, National though it may be in its aspects, to deal better with the plight under which we are now labouring.
We have to-day 57,336 able-bodied unemployed now on the register, and I want to know how we are going to be affected if that procrastination goes on, and we do not get some benefit from the Act. I put it to the Minister that if, when he was Postmaster-General, he had carried on the Post Office in the same way in which this business is being carried on, it would have been necessary to put in an Official Receiver to manage that business. It would have been necessary to appoint commissioners to look after the Minister. Our position in the city of Liverpool is bad, and this dilatoriness on the part of the Government can no longer be tolerated. We must have business methods.
Members from other parts of the country can, speak from their own point of view; I am speaking on behalf of Liverpool, with the full authority of the whole city council, representing every shade of opinion in that council, and I say we are not satisfied. Our position, with one person in five unemployed, is becoming terrible; it is becoming a stigma on our national life; it is keeping people from coming to the city of Liverpool. When I think of the effect of


the higher rates upon our shopkeepers and upon the general trade of our city, I must express my indignation at the dilatoriness of the Government. If I could obstruct, or get a Division to-night that would force the Government into such a position that this Bill would not go through, I would willingly do so. I might be told that the responsibility would be very great, as a refusal of the Bill would bring difficulties; but the sooner we have difficulties, the sooner we make Members of the Government realise that this is a vital matter affecting all parties in the country, the better. For that reason I raise my protest, and I shall be interested to see if any Member from the city of Liverpool will get up and express different opinions from those which I have expressed in regard to our indignation against this proposal.

7.55 p.m.

Mr. MARSHALL: I am afraid it is going to be the experience of the Minister to-night to sit and listen to the story of one suffering town after another as regards their experience of public assistance and unemployment generally. I am not, of course, going to oppose the passing of this Resolution. It is no doubt very necessary. But, I think that this is a very fine opportunity for us to tell the Minister exactly what the various authorities think about this question of unemployment, and I would add my voice to that of the hon. Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool (Mr. Logan) in asking the Government to implement the definite and solemn promise which they gave to carry to the extent of 100 per cent. the burden of the able-bodied unemployed in this country.
The Minister referred to the fact that certain authorities were satisfied in regard to this money arrangement, but I have yet to learn what authorities are satisfied in regard to their treatment by the Government so far as unemployment is concerned. As a matter of fact, there have never been stronger representations made on any matter; representations have never been more unanimous on any subject than on this question of the able-bodied unemployed. Interview after interview has been sought with the Government; representations upon representations have been made to the Government on this matter—all with one definite object, namely, to get the Government to undertake the responsibility for

100 per cent. of the able-bodied unemployed. I have here a resolution passed by the executives of the distressed areas, in which they again demand—and this demand is made after many more demands of a similar kind—that the Government shall undertake this solemn responsibility which they promised to undertake some time back.
All parties in our local councils are agreed on this demand; there is absolutely no difference so far as the parties are concerned. It is not a question of dividing the parties into Labour and Conservative, or whatever may be the case in the various localities; all parties are united in this demand. As a member of a local authority who has had some experience, I understand some of the difficulties with regard to this question. I know the difficulties that the local authorities have had to confront during the last 10 years in regard to unemployment, and I am amazed at the fortitude that has been displayed by the local authorities in this matter—a fortitude displayed by men who have been suffering untold miseries as a consequence of the Government's dilatoriness.
Some time ago the Chancellor of the Exchequer said that the Government were already bearing something like 95 per cent. of the total burden of unemployment in this country. Frankly, I do not know how he arrives at that figure. He could only arrive at a figure of that character by taking into account the total contributions paid by the employers of the country, and also the contributions paid by the workers, who, of course, contribute their quota towards the statutory benefit under the Unemployment Insurance Acts. It seems to me to be ridiculous to say that the Government are already bearing 95 per cent. of the total cost of unemployment, and I should be interested to hear what the Minister has to say on that matter.
I want to give the experience of Sheffield in regard to this matter. Sheffield is a great industrial city, and I am happy to say that during the last four or five years there has been some improvement in Sheffield as regards unemployment. The figures have gone down from about 56,000 or 58,000 to about 30,000. I am not going to discuss the question whether that is due to tariffs, or to the natural enterprise of the people


of Sheffield, or what it is due to, but it is a fact that that reduction has taken place. If the Government care to take the credit for it, they can do so, though of course there are differences of opinion about that, but it is a fact that unemployment in the city of Sheffield has decreased until the figure is now somewhere about 30,000, as against 58,000 in 1930 or 1931. One would naturally expect that, with such a decrease in unemployment, the city would have gained some relief as a consequence, and I think we are entitled to demand that some relief shall be given to a city where, owing to the enterprise of its citizens, its unemployment has been reduced to that extent.
I think the following figures will probably be as amazing, and as much a revelation, as those which were given by my hon. Friend the Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool. In 1931, out-relief in the city of Sheffield cost about £328,000. In 1932 the figure went up to £451,000. In 1933 it was £616,000; in 1934, £700,000; and in 1935, £708,000. So we get this amazing position, that while unemployment in Sheffield has gone down by 28,000 the cost of relief of the able-bodied unemployed has gone up to a total figure of £1,163,000. That means a rate of 8s. 9d. in the £. Public assistance in Sheffield, if you take the whole scope of public assistance, counts for 8s. out of a total rate of 17s. in the £. I say that is an intolerable burden and that we are justified in demanding that the Government shall take over the responsibility—a responsibility that they are solemnly pledged to take over. Sheffield and other towns have suffered poverty and in many cases destitution, they have struggled might and main under an intolerable burden, and at the same time the Government have been taking credit to themselves.
In reply to a question in the House, it was stated by the Ministry of Labour only the other day that the Unemployment Insurance Fund had a surplus of £20,000,000. That £20,000,000 has been dragged out of the people of Sheffield and Liverpool and other towns, and some of that £20,000,000 should be used to relieve the intolerable burden under which they are suffering to-day. I sincerely hope that every Member who represents a distressed area, or one of these great

cities that have been bearing this burden for years, will make known with no uncertain voice that they demand relief. I hope that at the first opportunity the Minister will bring forward some measure to give to local authorities long overdue relief.

8.3 p.m.

Mr. ANDERSON: I come from a district which is classed as a distressed area and I am fortified in two ways. In the first place the Cumberland County Council has passed a resolution asking that the cost of the able-bodied unemployed should become a national charge. The Cumberland County Council is not a Socialist body. It is a body made up of a majority of Conservatives, with one or two Liberals. In that respect I think I can say that I am speaking for the whole body of opinion in Cumberland. Then I am fortified in tins way, that not only did I mention in my election address that I considered that the cost of the able-bodied unemployed should be a national charge, but I mentioned it at almost every meeting I attended during the Election. I want to ask the Minister whether he can state the position in Cumberland to-day, and I also want to ask what guarantee the Government are going to give that the cost in the distressed areas will be made a national charge in the future. Are the Government prepared to give a straight answer, or are they going to defer their answer and leave us in the dark still longer? I think we are entitled to a straight answer from the Government. It is a very important matter to the distressed areas.
Really one is led to the conclusion that the Government supporters come from districts where the cost of the able-bodied unemployed is small compared with the cost in the distressed areas. I have in mind some parts of Lancashire, where you have, for instance, business men living in Southport and Blackpool, going to the cities of Manchester and Salford in the morning and returning the same night, who are not bearing a proper share of the cost of relief. I feel that we are entitled on the facts that have been given to some definite promise as to what is going to be done in the future. My object in rising is to say distinctly and deliberately that I have the support of the whole of the Cumberland County


Council upon this matter and that I am also supported by the fact that I fought the election on this particular question.

8.5 p.m.

Mr. KIRBY: I rise to speak on this matter mainly because when I spoke on Friday last the Noble Lord the Minister without Portfolio questioned some of my figures because in the course of my remarks I had referred to the cost of the maintenance of our local hospitals and institutions in Liverpool. I want now to give some other figures and to make clear to the Minister what I intended to say. In what I am going to say now I hope I shall be able to make the position clear beyond possibility of any mistake so far as figures relating to Liverpool are concerned. Some of the figures I am about to give differ slightly from those I gave on Friday, but I make no apology for that. The reason is that since Friday I have received from the City Treasurer figures which he has brought up to date. The total annual cost to Liverpool of the able-bodied unemployed who come within the scope of the 1934 Act, based on our experience in January and February this year, would be for the 12 months £1,015,193. We have, however, to make allowance—perhaps I did not make this clear the other day—for the Government grant to Liverpool in respect of the unemployed. That amounts to £762,291.
On top of that the Government, rightly or wrongly—quite wrongly in my opinion—claim credit for £180,000 which is included in the block grant to the city. That is an amount which we have never allocated for a specified purpose, and we have been told by the Ministry of Health that it should not be specially allocated. However, giving the Government credit for that, their total contribution during the current year would be £942,291. That leaves a net amount chargeable to the rates of the city in respect of the able-bodied unemployed coming within the scope of the 1934 Act of £72,902. In addition to that—these are the new figures I want to give—we have to maintain able-bodied unemployed who are not insurable and do not come under the 1934 Act. It is estimated that in the current year the cost will be £1,335,531, against which we shall get a grant from the Government of £1,015,193. That leaves a net charge on the rates of £320,338, which with the amount charge-

able in respect of the able-bodied unemployed coming within the scope of the 1934 Act gives a total of £393,240.
May I say that the able-bodied unemployed not within the scope of the 1934 Act are costing the city no less than £200,000 by reason of sickness and of transfers from the insurance scheme to the rates? That is included in the £393,000. On top of that, we have the cost of maintaining the ordinary poor, which is £528,765, so that our total cost amounts to £922,000 in the current year, and that is equivalent to no less than 3s. 4d. in the £ on the rates. I think the figures I have given make the position in regard to Liverpool rather clearer, because I have specifically avoided any reference to hospitals and institutions. I was interested to hear the Minister state that he and his colleagues had been considering this question in regard to the special areas. He said that he found on examination that these special areas had benefited to the tune of some £400,000 in the year, but that there were some places which probably suffered some small loss because of the postponement of the appointed day. With regard to that I would point out that our loss was £270,000. If that statement is challenged I would ask the Minister whether it is not the fact that Liverpool has received the approval of the Ministry to spread that deficit over a period of five years at an annual charge, I think, of about £54,000. If that is the average, then obviously the figure I have quoted must be correct.
I do not want to press the matter unduly now—although we shall continue to press it if we do not get satisfaction—and I should like finally to refer very briefly to the remarks of the hon. and gallant Gentleman who represents West Birkenhead (Lieut.-Colonel Sandeman Allen). He said that if local authorities—I am not quoting him exactly but more or less correctly—fixed a date wrongly it was entirely their own fault. That may be so in regard to fixing the appointed day, but it is not the fault of Liverpool nor of Sheffield and other places that there is this great volume of unemployment. After all, that is the kernel of the situation, and that is what we have to consider. We have to remember that the unemployment situation in Liverpool has been made worse by the policy of the Government both in relation to its trading


relations with the Irish Free State and with regard to its policy of quotas, tariffs and Protection generally. In regard to those matters the fault cannot be laid at the door of Liverpool. If the National Government believe that in the interests of the country generally it is necessary to carry on that policy of tariffs and quotas, those towns and cities and seaports which suffer as the result of that policy should not be asked to bear the whole burden while cities like London and Birmingham are let off. Liverpool will not and cannot be satisfied until the bulk of this great burden is taken off its shoulders.

8.16 p.m.

Mr. RICHARD LAW: It would be a pity if the Minister were to go away with the idea that the Merseyside is the only part of the country that is interested in this question. It is difficult to know quite to what the relief that has been promised will amount. I can assure him that Members from other parts of the country besides Merseyside will be pressing him very hard to give the relief that he has promised. More than one Member who has spoken has pointed out that we who represent distressed areas shall continue to press for the Government to take over the whole burden of the relief of the able-bodied unemployed. I am not concerned with whether the Government promised to do this or not. I do not think, strictly speaking, that they have promised to take over the whole burden. At the same time there is an unanswerable case in equity why places like the Merseyside and Humberside, which have suffered very severely through no fault of their own, should be relieved of this burden, which is and ought to be, the burden of the nation as a whole. I hope the Minister will not consider that, because he has granted some concession in respect to the postponement of the second appointed day, he has discharged his whole duty towards local authorities in this respect, because he will not have done so, and I am sure there will be plenty of Members to keep on reminding him of it.

8.18 p.m.

Mr. SILVERMAN: I think there can be no doubt as to what is the general principle agreed upon in the House in regard to this matter. I am not repre-

senting any Liverpool constituency but I cannot forget that I have been for some little time a member of the Finance Committee of the Liverpool Privy Council, and for rather longer a member of the council itself. I hoped at one time, listening to the Minister of Health, that we were going to get from him an undertaking, which I am sure he must realise to be wise and just, which would put an end to this problem once and for all. The hon. Member who spoke last did not think the Government had promised anything. I do not know whether that is so or not but I have rather gathered from the general tone of the Debate that it would be very difficult indeed to find any Member of the House who was prepared to defend any other principle than that the full cost of the able-bodied unemployed should be borne by the State and not by the local authorities. I have always understood that one of the main purposes which the Government hoped to fulfil by the very Measure which it was afterwards forced to postpone was just that question of taking off the shoulders of the distressed areas themselves the burden of maintaining those people who constituted them a distressed area. How can there be any objection to that principle?
I suppose it is not incontrovertible but I think it is generally accepted in Liver-pool, both by those who support the National Government and those who oppose it, that wherever the policy of tariffs may or may not have brought some benefit, temporary or permanent, there is one spot to which they could not on any theory or on any principle be held to have brought any benefit and that is Liverpool or any other seaport. It may be that the Government are right and those of us who differ from them are wrong in thinking that the general principle of protective tariffs is one which remedies the problem of unemployment and brings some kind of prosperity somewhere, but I do not think the Minister himself or any of his supporters would argue that, wherever a tariff may be beneficial, it is of any benefit to a seaport. Therefore you would be compelled to admit that a policy which in their view may have brought prosperity somewhere has only increased the burden which Liverpool has to bear.
I hope no one is going to say that those problems are in any way caused or contributed to by the administrative of the local authority in Liverpool. I have many quarrels with that authority. It does not belong to my side of politics. It has a Tory majority and has had for a very long time. I do not think any one on that side of the House would say that the administration of Liverpool has had anything to do with it, whatever I might say. They cannot get out of it on any principle of that kind. Then what are they going to do? There is no doubt that, if the regulations first placed upon the Table under the relevant Act had not proved abortive, this problem would not have existed. I am not going into the question of why they proved abortive, because it is not relevant to the discussion, but they did and they had to be withdrawn, and it is the fact of the withdrawal of those regulations and the fact that it was necessary to postpone the appointed day that has created the problem that we are trying to solve. Is that going to be laid at the door of Liverpool or any other local authority? Surely it cannot be and, unless the Government is prepared to meet local authorities on this question, it will find itself inevitably in this position, that it is calling upon the hardest hit areas to pay some part at any rate of the financial penalty for the fact that the Government produced regulations which it had to withdraw and appointed a day which it subsequently had to postpone. Can there be any defence for that? There is no one, certainly not the right hon. Gentleman, who will say that it is equitable.
When he was addressing the House I interposed a question and he reminded me that he and I belong to the same profession. Let me ask him to consider it not as a politician nor as a member of the administration. Suppose these distressed areas came to him in his professional capacity and asked him to advise them upon the equity of their case. Would he turn his client away or would he advise him, "In my view, the claim that you have against the adminstration is abundantly justified both in law and in equity, and I will prosecute your claim with all my professional ability to a successful conclusion." I do not want to go into a lot of figures as my hon. Friend the Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool (Mr. Logan) and my hon.

Friend the Member for Everton (Mr. Kirby) have given certain figures. I think that they are correct, but it is irrelevant, for it does not matter in the least whether their figures are correct or not. Let them be challenged and controverted, and let the right hon. Gentleman say "I do not accept your figures." How does that improve his position? He did say that there were cases—and I understood him to include Liverpool—that have suffered a slight loss by the postponement. Whether a loss is slight or substantial is a matter of opinion, and the Minister is no doubt dealing habitually with such enormous sums of money that a paltry few hundred thousand pounds may appear to him to be a slight matter.
In Liverpool it is not quite such a slight matter. Even were it so, the point here is not whether the loss is slight or whether it is substantial. The point is to show him the loss, whatever the loss may be. I expected at one, part of his speech that he was recognising that principle and would at least satisfy our reasonable, just and equitable demands. I listened to him very carefully. I noted what he said, and, thinking that he was being betrayed by a slip of the tongue into vagueness which he did not really intend, I ventured to interpose with the idea of clearing up the ambiguity of the undertaking and trying to get from him exactly what it was. I discovered what perhaps, if I had been more experienced in the ways of this House and of Ministers, I should have known before I interposed, that the ambiguity was no lapse and no slip of the tongue. It was deliberate and intentional because his reply was, "No. I prefer to leave the undertaking in the very carefully prepared and selected phraseology that I have employed." Why did he do that? Because he preferred the undertaking to be vague rather than explicit. Why should he prefer the undertaking to be vague rather than explicit, unless he knows that he proposes to do nothing that will satisfy the authorities concerned? If he meant really to satisfy the authorities concerned, I cannot imagine why he should not explicitly say so. What did he say? He said that he would give an undertaking—I hope no hon. Member will mind interposing to correct me if I am wrong—in those cases


where there had been some slight loss, to examine very sympathetically the question of the loss, and then he expressed a hope that the authorities would be satisfied.
The authorities, let me tell the right hon. Gentleman now, will not be satisfied to pay any part of the cost of the mistakes of His Majesty's Government. The Government must pay that loss themselves. The authorities will not be satisfied if they are left to stand the loss for things which are not their fault and over which they have no control. Surely, if the question is really one of figures, it would be easy for the right hon. Gentleman., and I invite him to say this. I cannot speak for the City of Liverpool, as I represent no part of it in this House, and no doubt my colleagues who are of my way of thinking, as well as hon. Members on the benches opposite, will be able to speak for themselves, but personally I should be perfectly satisfied if the right hon. Gentleman were to give this undertaking and say, "I will go into the question with you very carefully in order to ascertain what exactly the loss is." He might also say—and I would not mind if he said it—"I am not prepared to accept your figures. I think that they are mistaken, misconceived and founded on a wrong basis." Let him say so if he wishes, but let him say further, "I will examine everything you have to say, and I will pay back to you every penny that you can prove to me that you have lost by reason of the postponement of the second appointed day.
I am prepared to make the right hon. Gentleman judge in his own case and to accept his decision, provided he arrives at it after proper investigation. I, and I am sure all the distressed areas involved in this matter, would be prepared to give him such evidence to back our figures that, being a fair-minded man accustomed to the weighing of evidence, he would not be able to resist the correctness of the deductions we have drawn from them. Be that as it may, I am prepared to put all these facts and figures before the right hon. Gentleman and to accept his decision as to what is, in fact, the amount of the loss sustained, provided he will undertake to pay for the loss, whatever he may ascertain it to be. Why cannot he do that? It that too explicit?

Why should he not do it? All he says is, "I will undertake to examine it, and after I have examined it I will undertake that you will be satisfied." I do not know how he could undertake that we would be satisfied, but he could undertake to pay us what he himself was satisfied we had lost. That is the demand. It is not a party demand. The case that I have been trying to make in the last few minutes, and that of my hon. Friends here, is a non-party case, and it would be backed whole-heartedly by people of every shade of opinion in the Liverpool City Council and in the Bootle Town Council. Our claim is entirely legitimate and is based purely on the equities of the case and on the alleged or avowed principles of the Government's own legislation. I leave it there. I invite the right hon. Gentleman to give us such an undertaking.
There is one other and quite a different matter to which I should like to refer, and that is the operation of the so-called stand-still agreement. I understand that there was a great deal of verbal play the other day between my hon. Friends who sit below the Gangway and one of His Majesty's Ministers—

Mr. BUCHANAN: It was much more serious than that. The hon. Member must not take our discussions verbally.

Mr. SILVERMAN: I apologise if the hon. Member thinks that I am doing him an injustice. I do not intend to do him an injustice; at any rate much less an injustice than perhaps he intended to do to some of my hon. Friends. When I said "verbal play," I only meant that there was some attempt on the part of the Minister involved to escape from what I understood was a perfectly clear undertaking, by playing upon the words in which he alleged that the undertaking had been given. I understand that it was intended that no man during the operation of the standstill agreement should be worse off than he would have been, or than he was, when his case was in the hands of the public assistance committee. Let me tell the right hon. Gentleman once for all that if he thinks that that standstill arrangement is being honourably operated up and down the country, he is labouring under an illusion which keeps him outside the facts of how the unemployed in this country are living.
I do not want to delay the Committee—perhaps I have spoken too long already, and I apologise if I have—but I should like to point out two things. When a woman is expecting the birth of a child every public assistance committee regards that fact as increasing the degree of destitution in such a way as to justify increased relief. The Unemployment Assistance Board do no such thing. We cannot get at them. The right of appeal is fobbed off and obstructed in every possible way. Even if that right is known and if the applicant avails himself of it, it is very rarely of any avail. Under the old public assistance committees we could go to them, we knew where to go and we knew how to deal with the case, but under the present system we do not know. There is nowhere that we can go. There is no one who can control the board. If I understand the answers of the responsible Minister correctly, he cannot control them. If we can prove to the right hon. Gentleman that people are considerably worse off in many cases, and worse off to the point of danger to life under the operations of the standstill arrangement, will he take steps to see that that arrangement is more honourably carried out in the future?
Let me give another instance, and again it is connected with maternity. I know that the Minister of Health is very interested in maternity and child welfare. I can quote an actual case and can give the details if the Minister wants them. It is the case of the wife of an unemployed man who was expecting confinement.

The TEMPORARY CHAIRMAN (Mr. Entwistle): The hon. Member is going into details of administration. That is not in order on this Financial Resolution.

Mr. SILVERMAN: If it is not in order, I will leave it there. I do not want to do anything that is not permissible, but I thought that the operations of the standstill arrangement would be part of our business on this Resolution. The point that I was going to put was that in a case of that sort, I believe it to be the general principle that the public assistance committees would have granted relief for extra sheets, blankets and bed clothes, but I know of many cases where under the standstill arrangement that is not allowed, although it is

known that the public assistance committees would have granted it. I should like to know whether the Minister thinks that the undertaking given is being carried out in that respect. If the right hon. Gentleman wants his Resolution to be carried to-night, he can carry it easily and simply by giving effect to what I know he himself believes to be right and just, by giving us an undertaking to pay to us whatever we can prove to his satisfaction we have lost.

8.40 p.m.

Mr. T. SMITH: On a point of Order. Seeing that this Financial Resolution is linked up with the standstill order and is more or less administered by the public assistance committees, would it be in order on this Resolution to deal with certain phases of administration?

The TEMPORARY CHAIRMAN: To go into detailed administration of the means test and other matters arising under the standstill agreement, would not be in order on this Financial Resolution.

Mr. SMITH: We were given an assurance in the early part of the year, when the standstill order was brought into operation, that the unemployed who came under that order would not be worse off. When the transitional machinery was in operation certain public assistance committees gave to the unemployed a winter coal allowance, but in the last two or three weeks certain public assistance committees have informed deputations that they are now debarred from giving this winter coal allowance. If that be so, it is in direct contradiction of the statements that were made from the Box when the standstill order was brought about.

The TEMPORARY CHAIRMAN: In so far as that was used as an illustration dealing with any assurance of the kind, it would be in order.

Mr. SMITH: I will content myself by saying that if it is in order perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary will deal with the point and make it clear whether the public assistance committees have that power or not.

8.42 p.m.

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of HEALTH (Mr. Shakespeare): I think that at this stage, if the Scottish Members will agree—

Mr. BUCHANAN: On a point of Order. I did not intend to intervene merely on the Scottish position. While there is a Scottish position, it is to a large extent governed by the general position. I wish the Scottish position to be discussed but I wish to intervene on the general issue.

Mr. SHAKESPEARE: I appreciate that, but—

Mr. MAXTON: On a point of Order. We were led to understand from statements that were made to us that the general debate having been opened by the Minister of Health it should continue for a certain period and that at the appropriate moment the Secretary of State for Scotland would intervene and state the Scottish position and give figures dealing with it. After that statement was made persons who wished to raise specific Scottish matters were to be allowed to do so, but the general debate was not to be terminated, and when it was terminated it was to be terminated by a representative of the Ministry of Health. Am I to understand that that arrangement which was come to in unofficial ways is to be departed from and that the general debate is to be closed before the Scottish debate starts?

Mr. HARDIE: Was not that arrangement made as the result of a statement from the Front Bench opposite?

Mr. SHAKESPEARE: I thought that it would facilitate matters if I disposed of a number of questions, without any idea of making a long speech, and then the hon. Members opposite below the Gangway could raise points in general, and particularly in regard to Scotland, to which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland could reply. If the hon. Member prefers to speak now I am entirely in the hands of the Committee. If he thinks there is any unfairness on my part, I will immediately sit down.

Mr. LOGAN: As we are now in Committee, may I ask, in regard to the stand-still arrangement, whether the Parliamentary Secretary will give us his opinion as to the extra grants which can be given during the Christmas period? They depend on the stand-still arrangement.

Mr. BUCHANAN: In the circumstances I do not propose to make a

speech, but will the Parliamentary Secretary in the course of his remarks reply to this point. This is national money which is to be handed over to the public assistance authorities concerned. In other words, we are to recoup them for expenditure into which they have entered or intend to enter. The question is what guidance, what control, have the Government on the spending of this national money? Can the Government through the Minister of Health in any way intervene in the spending of it? Can they insist on seeing that the recipients are properly paid according to the law?

Mr. SHAKESPEARE: The Bill is intended to adjust for a further period the financial relations of the central Government and local authorities. Hon. Members who are interested in unemployment and public assistance, and who desire to raise questions such as the granting of Christmas relief, are reading into the Bill more than is really in it. As far as the Ministry of Health is concerned it implements a promise made to local authorities, and the conditions of relief and questions of Christmas relief really fall outside the scope of the Bill. The right hon. Member for Wakefield (Mr. Greenwood) started by producing a number of ghosts which seemed to haunt his speeches in the last Parliament, but which whenever they were produced were always laid. I was hoping that these ghosts would not be produced in the present Parliament, because I should have thought that they had all been disposed of to the satisfaction of everybody. At any rate those hon. Members who are still not satisfied should read some of the Debates in the last Parliament, and they will see that all these ghosts and bogies hardly survived those Debates. Let me deal with one or two main points which show how unsubstantial they are. The right hon. Gentleman referred to the speech that the previous Minister of Health made on the 12th April, 1933, and contended that he then said that the Government would assume financial responsibility for all the able-bodied unemployed. He never said anything of the kind. What he said was that the assumption of responsibility by the Government was subject to the adjustment of the block grant. Two or three hon. Members, including the hon.
Member for the Scotland Division (Mr. Logan) will perhaps remember that Debate.

Mr. LOGAN: My memory is defective.

Mr. SHAKESPEARE: I would advise every hon. Member who has a defective memory on this point to read the Debate, because he will find that several hon. Members immediately got up and attacked the Minister of Health for not assuming full responsibility for the able-bodied unemployed. It is fair to say that although many Governments and parties have talked about assuming national responsibility for the able-bodied unemployed it is the National Government that has gone a very long way towards doing so. Let me illustrate it in this way: Under the Unemployment Insurance Act some 12,000,000 persons are qualified for benefit in times of unemployment. When we considered in the last Parliament the category of persons who should come under the board it was decided by the Government to frame the widest definition possible. The hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) will agree that the definition was so widely drawn that it actually covered not 12,000,000 persons but over 16,000,000 persons, and as they all qualify for expenditure in respect of this Bill I think we can say that we have gone a long way towards assuming national responsibility for the able-bodied unemployed, though not perhaps, the absolute 100 per cent.

Mr. GREENWOOD: Why not the lot?

Mr. SHAKESPEARE: I think it would be a mistake to take over the whole responsibility on the ground for one thing, of good administration. Those who know anything about local government know that it is not altogether desirable that local authorities should be free of all financial responsibility whatever for a service they administer, and I doubt whether—even if the right hon. Member for Wakefield were standing here—he would totally free local authorities of responsibility on account of good administration. The question of the October date was disposed of by the hon. Member for the Scotland Division. He rather implied that there had been a pledge—

Mr. LOGAN: No, but that there was a general agreement that the appointed day was to be in July.

Mr. SHAKESPEARE: There was not even that. The word "pledge" has been used, but the suggestion is so unfounded that I do not think even of replying to it. There is not one scintilla of evidence that there was any understanding or agreement that any day should be fixed. I cannot find it anywhere. It may be that there was an expectation on the part of optimistic local authorities that the day of transfer would happen earlier than it was fixed—

Mr. SILVERMAN: Were they not encouraged?

Mr. SHAKESPEARE: It is no use making these statements without some foundation, and until I get a line of proof either verbal or written I do not intend to deal with that point. What we did was to allow for the natural disappointment of local authorities when their hopes were disappointed, and allowed them to spread over their extra payments by borrowing over five years. The next point made by hon. Members was that the burden upon the local authorities had been increased. My reply is that the contribution of the local authorities was fixed in relation to the standard year and in so far as there has been an increase it does not fall on the local authorities. That is another instance of the generosity of the Government. Let me illustrate that point by the Liverpool case. Several hon. Members including the hon. Member for the Scotland division and the hon. Member for Everton (Mr. Kirby) mentioned the case of Liverpool. The hon. Member for Everton produced a great number of figures which at short notice it was rather difficult to follow, but as a matter of interest I read his speech and I think we are talking about two different things. The basis of our figures is responsibility for the relief of able-bodied unemployed men and we estimated that by calculating the expenditure on relief in the standard period.
On reading the hon. Member's figures I find that he has added to that annual expenditure a considerable sum in respect of cases other than cases of unemployment, for instance cases of sickness and accident. In doing so, he is asking the Government to assume a responsibility which nobody else has ever asked them to assume. But if we take what I think is the fair basis generally—and what is


fair for the country is fair for Liverpool—if we take the expenditure on relief based on the three winter months chosen, I think that even in regard to Liverpool the Government can hold up its head. We can say that we have dealt pretty generously with Liverpool. I find, to be exact, that out of an annual liability of £1,015,000 the Government is contributing £762,000. If I owed £1,000,000 and somebody said, "Here is £750,000" I should feel very grateful.

Mr. SILVERMAN: Grateful for 15s. in the £.

Mr. SHAKESPEARE: Certainly, and I am still looking for gratitude from the Liverpool Members.

Mr. KIRBY: I can understand the hon. Gentleman's position and I think that his figures taken as round figures are, generalling speaking, correct. We say, however, that we have to shoulder this burden of the other able-bodied unemployed. They may be sick but they are unemployed, and nothing that you can say will alter that category. We have to keep them and we want help to keep them, and our burden is different from and is heavier than the burdens that exist elsewhere.

Mr. SHAKESPEARE: The hon. Member is now raising a rather different question, and one which is outside the purview of the proposed Bill. I want to say to the Liverpool Members and to the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Silverman) that in so far as any local authority has suffered loss by the postponement of the second appointed day my right hon. Friend has made the position clear. He has said that he will consider any hard case. I mean any hard case among local authorities.
The hon. Member for Brightside (Mr. Marshall) referred to a statement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer to the effect that the Exchequer was bearing the cost of the assistance of the able-bodied unemployed to the extent of 95 per cent. and that only the difference between 95 per cent. and 100 per cent. was left to the local authorities. The hon. Member wished to know whether, in calculating that 95 per cent., the cost of unemployment was included. It is not. The whole cost of those who come under what we call the Unemployment

Fund is outside that calculation. The hon. Member for Whitehaven (Mr. Anderson) asked me how Cumberland would fare. Cumberland is, I think, one of the gainers. Speaking from memory, I think Cumberland will get something like 70 per cent. of the total expenditure on outdoor relief, which is a very considerable help.
I return to my first point. This really is an innocent little Measure by which it is hoped to do justice to the local authorities and make sure that they shall be in no worse position as a result of the postponement of the second appointed day. There is no more in it than that. I think experience has shown that the basis of the calculations in the Act was right because in fact the great majority of local authorities have gained by the postponement of the second appointed day. The Bill, in connection with which this Financial Resolution is moved, continues the arrangement.

Mr. LOGAN: With all respect surely the hon. Gentleman cannot make that statement to the Committee. The local authorities are not satisfied. He must be aware that every local authority in the country is protesting, and is asking for 100 per cent.

Mr. SHAKESPEARE: Again we seem to be dealing with different points. All that the Government claims is that local authorities will not suffer by the postponement of the second appointed day, and this Bill makes that perfectly clear. Over 95 per cent. of the local authorities will actually gain by the postponement of the second appointed day, and I hope I have now said enough to answer the various points raised by hon. Members.

Mr. E. SMITH: I put a question to the Minister of Health on this subject and the implication of his reply was that there was some hope of the distressed areas being relieved. Are we to take it from the Parliamentary Secretary's statement that there is no hope at all?

9.4 p.m.

Mr. BUCHANAN: I rise to continue the discussion, and I understand that the Secretary of State for Scotland will intervene to deal with certain Scottish matters. I also wish to raise one or two general issues affecting the Ministry of Health. There has been a great deal of discussion on the question of whether or


not the Government pledged themselves on this matter of the appointed day. I have attempted to find somebody who could tell whether they did pledge themselves, but so far without success, except in one instance. I attended a local authorities meeting, which was representative of both Scottish and English authorities, where the Treasurer for the City of Glasgow made the definite statement that he had met a Government official, along with the chief of the Public Assistance Department in Glasgow, now a distinguished member of the new Unemployment Assistance Board; that at that meeting either the chief official or the then Under-Secretary for Scotland, Mr. Noel Skelton, whose death we all deplore, was present, and that at that meeting the local authorities were told by responsible people that the date was to be, if not in July, certainly not later than October.
That is the most definite statement that I have met. I am aware that the Secretary of State for Scotland has endeavoured on many occasions to contradict it, but I will not say more on that point. My second point is as to how far the predecessor of the present Minister of Health, in a speech in this House, led the local authorities to believe that the grant would be one of 100 per cent. On that, I am aware that the ex-Minister of Health has constantly endeavoured to counteract that view and to say that it was not his intention, but if any layman cares to read his words in the OFFICIAL REPORT, any ordinary member of the public, any man without great legal training or training in word quibbling, he will agree that when that speech was made, on a Motion, I think, by Sir Luke Thompson and others in connection with the distressed areas, it would be taken as meaning that the Government intended to make a 100 per cent. grant.
That is as far as I will go on past promises, but I want to raise this issue with the Minister. It is true that this sum is to make good a promise given to the local authorities that any sum that they paid out to those not taken over, but who would have been taken over had the appointed day operated, would be paid to them, and this Money Resolution is to make that payment. If you feel, Mr. Entwistle, that I am getting out of order, I must submit, because I cannot expect to get the latitude that

newer Members are, perhaps, entitled to get, but there are one or two issues on this matter which may have repercussions just outside the bare limitations of this Resolution. The great bulk of these men are now paid by the local authorities, when in effect the Minister of Labour ought not to have transferred them as such to the local authorities. Incidentally, I think the Minister of Labour or one of his representatives should be present to-night, because there are repercussions affecting his Department very seriously.
If I may, I will trace back a little of the history leading up to this matter. Why is it that to-night we are devoting this sum of money to this purpose? Apart from arguments about dates, apart from arguments about 100 per cent., briefly speaking this was the position, that until the Labour Government abolished the "not genuinely seeking work" condition large numbers of people were constantly being thrown upon poor law relief, and the consequence was that in those days public assistance committees had to meet that expenditure on poor law, which really was not a right and proper burden upon them. The Labour Government abolished the "not genuinely seeking work." but the story does not end there. It was then thought that, following on that, the great mass of able-bodied unemployed would go from the local authorities and become a national charge, but that did not occur, and the "not normally in employment" condition took the place, or a substantial part of, "not genuinely seeking work." [An HON. MEMBER: "It was an umpire's decision."] It was not a matter of an umpire's decision. Until then "not normally in employment" was confined to a limited number of people, and the decision was made by insurance officers first, and then submitted to the umpire, but the insurance officers were servants of the Minister of Labour, and it would never have gone to the umpire had not those servants of the Minister of Labour put it there. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] You can quibble and dodge as much as you like, but "not normally" took the place and took it without any interference.
That being so, again the burden mounted up, but alongside of that there came another piece of legislation, which


threw the burden almost entirely on the Poor Law again, and that was the Anomalies Act. Whatever you may say, the Anomalies Act had this effect—it did not have a means test, but it had what was worse, namely, an occupation test. If a person followed a certain occupation, whether he had means or not, he was refused benefit, and such people became almost entirely a burden on the Poor Law. That burden further mounted up, and because of those things the Government were faced with an outcry in the country, which made such an impression that the Government had to take over some part of the burden as a national responsibility. Following upon that, the Government introduced the Act, under which they fixed two appointed days, one under which they are now working, and the second appointed day, on which were to be taken over what are called the able-bodied unemployed.
But this is the point, that when we passed that Act I understood that "not normally" was abolished, whereas I am finding to-day, pending the second appointed day, "not normally" is still operating; and here we have a position which is contradictory, namely, that under an Act of Parliament "not normally" is abolished, while, because of the delay in fixing the second appointed day, we are still working under it. The Minister of Health, I know, runs in double harness with the Minister of Labour, because two men more alike in a Government I have never known. They are both of the same type, both good propagandists, both excellent men for advertising and in seeing that their posts are well maintained, and always hitherto both among the few Cabinet Ministers who have not been put down but have constantly been moved up. They have that in common at any rate. But "not normally" is now being worked, and to-day, because Parliament is in effect abolishing this Section of the Act, it should be stopped being worked, and in future no further charge should be thrown on the local authorities through its operation.
The Minister of Labour has a further responsibility. I have constantly been told in this House that when you grant State money the State must have a responsibility. Indeed, the Under-Secretary said the reason why the local authorities were not given 100 per cent.

was that they had to have some responsibility. I take it that when we are paying 95 per cent. of the cost we have some right to see that the money is spent as the Acts of Parliament desired that it should be spent. I have never yet been able to get from the Minister what steps are taken by him to see that the sum which has been granted by Parliament is spent as Parliament desires it to be spent. I see that some local authorities are actually receiving more than the Exchequer thought they would receive. Are they receiving more because they are able to give the unemployed people less than the Act of Parliament allows? We have a position here which should receive some criticism. We have two sections of the unemployed, namely, the able-bodied and those on transitional payment. According to the Minister of Health, both are paid out of the same fund, that is national money, with the exception of 5 per cent. of the money in one case. That is to say, those on transitional payment are being paid by the Exchequer direct, and those on able-bodied benefit, to the extent of 95 per cent. of the money, are also being paid from the Exchequer. I do not think that the Minister will deny that.

Sir K. WOOD: I am thinking it over.

Mr. BUCHANAN: The transitional payment is entirely met from the Exchequer grants, and the able-bodied unemployed are paid to the extent of 95 per cent. also from national funds. Although the same people are providing the money, two sets of conditions are operating. One local authority says, as Glasgow does, that they will impose on the able-bodied a family maximum income. In Glasgow they say that if a man has five or six children he can have only 40s. That is what the Labour majority on the Glasgow Corporation says. The Government come along and say that there is to be no maximum family income for those on transitional payment. One set of the unemployed are, therefore, being treated differently from another, although they are being paid out of the same public funds. I say to the Minister of Health and to the Secretary of State for Scotland that, pending the new regulations, the time has arrived when there should be no differentiation between the two sections


of the unemployed. Can any hon. Member defend a difference of treatment where national money is being paid, and allow able-bodied unemployed, because of an accident of date, to be worse treated than if they were charged to the transitional payment, which is, in effect, the same money? If there is no family maximum for those on transitional payment, there ought to be no such maximum for the others. For those under transitional payment 3s. a week is now the standard rate for a child, but in the case of the able-bodied unemployed who are paid out of the same fund, the public authority can fix any amount that they desire. In the bulk of cases they fix it at 2s. The delay of dates which has caused this differentiation was not the fault of unemployed persons or of the local authorities, but it was the fault of the Government.
May I say a word or two about my own city's claim in this matter? Under the Act we have been asking local authorities, while they receive payments, to make payments back to the Unemployment Assistance Board. Glasgow Corporation last year had to pay back £400,000 to the Board. Glasgow's population numbers a little over 1,000,000. Liverpool had to pay £290,000 to the Board. London, on the other hand, with a population five times greater than that of either Glasgow or Liverpool, had to contribute less than £250,000. The valuation of London must be at least 20 times greater than that of either of the other two cities, and yet, with its vast resources, it had to pay only £250,000. Can anybody defend a basis which asks such different payments as these? The local authorities, when they make a demand for 100 per cent., make a demand for equitable treatment as between area and area. Nobody could defend the difference between London and Glasgow. The Ministry may say, "We are giving you more back; you are getting more out of the kitty." It is true that out of that pool Glasgow and Liverpool get more, but the point is that their poverty burden is greater, and does it mean because they happen to get more that these places should pay far in excess of the others?
I want to raise this other and purely Scottish point. You cannot fix unemployment charges on a population basis like the 11/80ths basis which is adopted

for Scotland, and which was fixed for education. Unemployment might differ greatly between Durham or South Wales and London compared with the difference between Glasgow and South Wales. You cannot fix the same ratio of 11/80ths on that basis. In this Bill there should have been some proposal to alleviate and to modify the position of Glasgow, which is the worst hit city in the country. I recognise that we cannot divide against this public money going to the local authorities, but I say in connection with the delay in the fixing of the appointed day that steps should be taken meantime to safeguard two things—the care and well-being of the unemployed, because I wish to emphasise again the point that you have no right to hand over public money to the local authorities without seeing that the conditions of the unemployed are decently maintained; and, secondly, that the local authorities, and in particular my native city, should under these proposals receive a fairer and squarer share of the nation's money than they have received hitherto.

9.29 p.m.

Mr. LEONARD: Notwithstanding what has been said with regard to the delay in the fixing of the second appointed day, I regret the attitude adopted by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health and the demand he made for something specific. I think I am entitled to press again the significance of the fact that practically the whole country was under the impression that October was the month in which this day should appear. The hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) has given me a reference to the City Treasurer of Glasgow and the attitude that he adopted. But may I point out in addition that at a large conference in the Caxton Hall on 28th February not only did the Scottish people indicate their impression of the matter, but there seemed to be unanimity also among the spokesmen of the English authorities that the day was to be in October. I know it is not fair to endeavour to make capital out of any mistake that has been made, but we must remember that in all local authorities there are officials who have to anticipate matters rather more than the elected representatives. There is no doubt that these officials had been in touch with the authorities, and my own belief is that the impression that the


date was to be in October came from a source of that character. I think because of that we are entitled to press that the anticipations we had in regard to October were to some extent justified.
Perhaps I may be allowed to add to what has been said by the hon. Member for Gorbals with regard to Glasgow, for this is an important matter to the city. Scotland generally has been continuously affected by this problem of the maintenance of the able-bodied unemployed, and especially since 1921. We find from statistics that in Scotland since 1921 there has been spent in this connection no less than £17,000,000. But out of that Glasgow has had to bear no less a sum than £9,000,000. I think that shows clearly that Glasgow, within Scotland—which also has a legitimate protest to make—is entitled to make some, special reference to the position in which it finds itself. With regard to the expectations of relief, reference has been made to the formula on which the expectations of the authorities have been based. On 12th April, 1933, the then Minister of Health said that the House was resolved that responsibility for assistance to all able-bodied unemployed not over 65 should be accepted by the Government with such re-adjustments in financial arrangements between the Exchequer and the local authorities as was reasonable having special regard to the necessities of the distressed areas. I do not think the formula that has been adopted is paying special regard to Glasgow.
The figures I have given indicate justifiable cause for asserting that special consideration has not been given to Scotland, and certainly has not been given to the City of Glasgow. I find, from statistics compiled by the City and taken from the Department of Health itself, that the cost of maintaining the unemployed alone between 1st October, 1934, and 1st March, 1935, was no less than £651,923 and that an analysis made by the Department of Health showed that 88.78 per cent. of the expenditure during test periods in August, September, November and December in 1934 was incurred in respect of cases which are within the scope of Part II of the Unemployment Assistance Act. Therefore we assert that 88.78 of the expenditure by Glasgow between 1st October and 1st

March is expenditure for which Glasgow has a right to expect repayment from the Government. The amount is stated as £578,777. That is a sufficiently large sum, taken in conjunction with the general hardships which have to be met in the case of Glasgow, to warrant us putting forward this protest.
I am particularly pleased that the hon. Member for Gorbals made reference to the 11/80ths. I am speaking from memory, but the total contributed to Scotland in the form of distressed area grants in the year 1933–34 was £60,000, and of that £40,000 went to Glasgow, but Glasgow had to pay £399,000 in the form of a contribution to the Unemployment Assistance Board—that is after the deductions they are entitled to make from the grant given. While Glasgow receives £40,000 it pays £399,000. For these reasons we feel we are entitled to protest against the attitude which has been adopted towards this very grave problem and to urge the Government to take speedy action in order to alleviate the position.

9.37 p.m.

The SECRETARY of STATE for SCOTLAND (Sir Godfrey Collins): The hon. Member for St. Rollox (Mr. Leonard) and the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) have drawn attention to two points which have often been discussed in this House, namely, that it was expected that the appointed day under the Unemployment Act would be 1st October, 1934, and the understanding on the part of many local authorities that the Treasury would take over 100 per cent. of the burden. I have on previous occasions endeavoured in Parliament to meet those two points, and, if I remember aright, those two hon. Members were present at a meeting in the Scottish Office a year ago when they were discussed for a very long time. If I may charge my memory, I asked for proof of their contention about those two points, and endeavoured to the best of my ability to trace the origin of those statements and I think they will agree with me that after we had discussed the matter for some time those two points were really put on one side. Still, I can quite understand those hon. Members and other Members who speak on behalf of local authorities seizing every proper Parliamentary opportunity to press the Government to under-


take 100 per cent. responsibility. The Government have at no time ever promised to do it, but Members in all parts of the House, thinking of their constituents, and representing their interests, are bound to take every available opportunity of stressing the burdens on the ratepayers and inviting the Government to accept the full burden. If the Committee will excuse me I will not now endeavour to deal with those two particular points.
Both hon. Members referred to the case of Glasgow and the Goschen formula. If the Goschen formula had been applied to the particular sums of money which the Committee are asked to vote this evening the position of Scotland would have been very much worse. Scotland is receiving grant at the annual rate of £1,600,000 and England £4,000,000. If the Goschen formula had been applied, England would receive £4,000,000 while Scotland would receive only £550,000. The Goschen formula was discarded and another formula was devised which has worked well in the interests of Scotland, and I think it was a very reasonable bargain for Scotland. The two hon. Members also drew attention to the heavy burden still resting on Glasgow, unfortunately, through the heavy unemployment in that area. The whole trouble on that point has arisen through the original Bill asking the various authorities to pay back to the Exchequer a definite sum. If, instead of adopting that form, the Government had adopted the grant-in-aid form and handed to those local authorities a specific sum towards the maintenance of the unemployed in their areas, I suggest that we should seldom have heard of the burden resulting from the sums which the local authorities are handing back to the Treasury. In reality, Glasgow has gained per head of the population a sum of 16s. 11½d., a larger sum than any town in Great Britain. Naturally I do not complain of that, because it is due to the heavy unemployment in that area. Liverpool receives 16s. 9½d. per head of the population, whereas London only gets—

Mr. BUCHANAN: Because London does not need it. If we had the same proportion of unemployment in Glasgow as in London we would take a smaller sum. The point is that Glasgow has received this money because of the poverty there.

Sir G. COLLINS: I quite understand that, but I am entitled to point out that these cities are receiving definite sums which they would not have received had not the Government come forward to help them. I have endeavoured to present the facts, from another angle it may be, but undoubtedly from a correct angle. These cities are receiving these large sums as grants from the National Exchequer. I am sure the hon. Member for Gorbals will not expect me to follow him into the history of the "genuinely seeking work" Clause and other points in connection with the Act which he raised. Undoubtedly they are fit subjects for discussion at the proper time, but this Financial Resolution is to continue the payments to the local authorities under the standstill agreement.

Mr. BUCHANAN: Will the right hon. Gentleman answer this point? Have the Government no control over the sums of money paid to the unemployed? The Government are making national grants which, according to their own statement, almost equal the Government grants for transitional payments. Have the Government no control over the amounts the local authorities disburse?

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: That cannot possibly arise upon this Resolution, which merely continues the existing state of the law. The hon. Member's suggestion is to alter the law itself, and that cannot possibly arise.

Mr. BUCHANAN: The law is that this sum is paid for the maintenance of able-bodied unemployed. The Government, through the Ministry of Health, have gone to the local authorities who are paid national money in this case, and have asked them to treat the unemployed in a certain way. I am asking if they will do in this case what has been done in practice where the sum has been granted.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: In so far as a Minister can make a representation—

Mr. BUCHANAN: That is what I am asking for.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: But the hon. Member was going beyond that by asking for an alteration in the general law.

Mr. BUCHANAN: I am asking that the Government should make a recom-


mendation to the local authorities. If the local authorities refuse to act, the Government have immense powers over them. I am asking that the law for one set of local authorities should be the same as for another set.

Sir G. COLLINS: I may be able to make representations; but unless I were supported by an Act of Parliament to enable me to carry such recommendations into effect, I would not be, and I am not, in a position to do so. I say quite definitely that I am not prepared to make such recommendations; I have not the statutory power to insist.

Mr. BUCHANAN: Why could you not recommend that the children's allowance be 3s.?

Sir G. COLLINS: The duty of the local authority in this matter is to continue as they did before the introduction of the Unemployment Act. They are continuing their responsibility in the same way and in the same spirt as they did before the introduction of that Measure.

Mr. BUCHANAN: I hate to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman once more, but may I point out that one of his predecessors issued a circular to every local authority saying that they must not pay more than a certain sum for each child? If that right hon. Gentleman had power to recommend the cutting down of the amount, it is not too much to ask, in the altered circumstances, that a circular be issued recommending all authorities to pay 3s. for a child.

Sir G. COLLINS: The hon. Member has to understand that I am not in a position to do so. My predecessor may have recommended that certain sums payable in respect of children should be cut down. I do not know the circumstances which caused him to take that course of action. I gather that the hon. Gentleman is asking me to increase the sum—if I followed him aright.

Mr. BUCHANAN: Yes.

Sir G. COLLINS: The sums payable to certain persons, he suggests, should in certain circumstances be increased. If I did that, the authorities would at once, and very naturally, come to the Government and say: "As you are pressing us to hand over these extra sums to these individuals, it is your bounden duty,

having invited and pressed us to do so, to find a large sum of money for that purpose." I honestly and definitely tell the hon. Member that I am not prepared to undertake that responsibility. It is for a much smaller and simpler purpose that I wish to commend this Resolution to Scottish Members on the general ground that it is advisable—

Mr. LEONARD: I think the right hon. Gentleman has in his possession details in regard to Glasgow, which give in a tabular form the payments in money or kind to the poor and the sums received from the Government towards the cost. The difference between them is supposed to have cost Glasgow a rate of 6s. in the year 1934–35. As a matter of fact, what was received from the Government was 9 of a penny.

Sir G. COLLINS: I hope before I sit down to show that the Resolution will be of some small advantage to the local authorities. Maybe I have expressed it too highly. It will be within the recollection of hon. Members opposite that a large Scottish deputation interviewed the Chancellor of the Exchequer when the appointed day was first postponed. That deputation, which was introduced by the Lord Provost of Glasgow, made a bargain that the advance should be calculated on the actual expenditure of December, 1934, and January and February, 1935. That has turned out to be a reasonably good bargain for the local authorities, and I am glad that it has done so. The relationship between the central government and the local authorities should be of a harmonious character. This House has entrusted to those local authorities duties of a far reaching character, and it is the duty of the Government of the day to assist those local authorities and encourage them in every possible way.
Let me now come to the particular sums which those local authorities are receiving through the reasonably good bargain which was made by the Scottish local authorities when they interviewed the Chancellor of the Exchequer nearly a year ago. It is estimated that up to the middle of November the local authorities will be paid about £2,600 per week more than if the cases had been transferred from the Poor Law on the appointed day and if the date had not been postponed. That is the result of the bargain. No


doubt during the winter the local authorities' expenditure may rise, but after making allowances for that, it has been estimated—again I give the figures provided by my officials in answer to the point put by the hon. Member—that the local authorities as a whole will gain about £2,000 per week. Earlier in the Debate, the Minister of Health gave an undertaking to the Committee that hard cases would be sympathetically reviewed. Up to now we have only received one complaint from local authorities in Scotland as to the working out of the bargain made nearly a year ago. After the undertaking which the Minister of Health has given, if that authority cares to put forward a claim it will be sympathetically considered. The promise given by the Minister of Health naturally covers not only the authority which has complained in the past but every local authority throughout the land.
Much play has been made in the Debate as to the 100 per cent., and I wish to come back to that point. Every local authority hopes that sooner or later the Government will undertake the full cost of the expenditure. Let me remind the Committee that contributions under the Unemployment Act and the block grant formula must be revised by this House before the beginning of the financial year 1937–38. We are, therefore, within 16 months of a revision of the block grant and of the contribution payable by local authorities to the Treasury under the Unemployment Act. It is, therefore, not too much to ask local authorities not to press their demand now in view of the short time which must elapse before the review of the block grant formula and the formula adopted under the Unemployment Act, which is bound to arise within 16 months. I may mention to hon. Members opposite that we have already started the work of reviewing that formula, so as to be in a position to come to the House at the proper time and submit a formula for the judgment of the Committee. I hope I have covered, I do not say completely, but fully enough, the points made by hon. Members opposite. I think, myself, that the bargain which has been made is a reasonable one, and I commend it to hon. Members opposite.

9.56 p.m.

Mr. FYFE: It is not my intention to detain the Committee for any length of time at this stage of the Debate, but there

are two points that have become crystal clear in the expression of policy from the Government Bench, to which I feel I must draw the attention of the Committee once again. The first is the position that was adopted by my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary, and has been underlined by the Secretary of State for Scotland. That is that for the moment the Government are not prepared to change their attitude with regard to our contention that the maintenance of the able-bodied unemployed should be made a 100 per cent. national charge. I must say that I am not impressed by the suggestion put forward by the Parliamentary Secretary that adherence to this position is necessary in the interests of good administration in local matters. I have heard it put forward before, and no doubt we shall all hear it put forward again, but I have still to hear the necessary particulars of those dangers to administration which are suggested, and I say that, even if there were these dangers, which are as yet unspecified and unparticularised, the position of Liverpool, of which this Committee has heard enough, and the difficulties which obtain in our city, would far outweigh any suggested dangers such as this Committee has not yet had placed before it.
With regard to the point raised by the Secretary of State for Scotland, that in any case this matter is going to be considered within 16 months, I am quite aware that it does not take a long time to say "16 months," but 16 months is a long time of passage when you are a local authority giving consideration to a difficult matter of this kind, and dealing with the sums of money that are here involved. Therefore I feel, and I know that I speak for hon. Members in all parts of the House who come from areas of this type, that we can and must ask the Government again to give reconsideration to this matter, and at any rate to give a full expression and a clear exposition of those dangers to administration which they ask us to consider before we continue the pressure we are now exerting, and which, until we are convinced, we shall continue to exert.
With regard to the second point I am able to adopt a pleasanter and easier, and, I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will consider, if he ever observes it, a quite grateful attitude. I refer to the undertaking given by the Minister of


Health with regard to the sympathetic consideration of any loss occasioned to a local authority by reason of the postponement of the appointed day. May I say again quite frankly that I cannot share the difficulties or doubts expressed by one of my hon. Friends, who has since left this Chamber, as to the difference between the undertaking given by the right hon. Gentleman and a specific undertaking to pay the loss that may be occasioned. In my view, when the right hon. Gentleman says that he will give sympathetic consideration to a hard case, the hard case will be established when a city like Liverpool can and will prove that loss has been occasioned in the way that is suggested. The Parliamentary Secretary has now returned, and I hope he will take notice of this gratitude. We are grateful for that undertaking, and, when the right hon. Gentleman is considering the position that obtains in Liverpool, and the loss that has been occasioned to Liverpool by this postponement, we hope and trust and believe that we shall be satisfied in that regard.

10.2 p.m.

Mr. HARDIE: I want to join with the hon. Member for the West Derby Division of Liverpool (Mr. Fyfe) in making my protest on this matter. No amount of explaining in the House of Commons or anywhere else is going to wipe out the definite statement that I have just been reading in the OFFICIAL REPORT. That statement is quite clear, and definite, and nothing has been said that wipes it out. A responsibility was accepted at that time, and the local authorities acted in all good faith upon the assumption that that statement was to be carried out and honoured. I want the Committee to consider the position of those who are engaged in local administration. Supposing that we accept the period of 16 months which has been suggested, imagine what 16 months means to a local administrator having to deal every day with case after case if he has to tell them just to wait 16 months when things may be a little better. That pledge having been given, the local authorities set about doing their business, and they have incurred what must become a loss if the Government do not implement their promise. In Glasgow alone it has meant an increase of 10d. in the rates, and it is going to increase them more and more

unless the Government redeem their promise.
The Secretary of State for Scotland knows Glasgow well, and is familiar with the conditions, not only of Glasgow, but of the surrounding districts. It is not to be forgotten that, while Glasgow has a population of over 1,000,000, a great number of these people work outside the city, and I hope the Secretary of State is not forgetting that point, which becomes very important. If yon take the areas surrounding Glasgow, you will find some of, let us say, the west-end type, where the rates are in some cases just about a sixteenth of what they are in the industrial centres, and these people are carrying on business in Glasgow. We have to realise what the De-rating Act has meant to great industrial cities like Glasgow. I should have thought that, when all these things were taken into proper review and related to the conditions, some method of differentiation would have been developed in order to meet the difference in these cases, but the Secretary of State for Scotland tells the city of Glasgow that it will have to wait for 16 months before any change can be made. In the meantime it has to pay out of its rates all that the Government has refused to pay.
That is a most shameful position to take up, to make local authorities believe that this was a sane, common-sense offer by the Government. You cannot get away from this fact, however much you try, after all that has been done by local authorities. Every Member in this House ought to see to it from now on that that pledge is implemented, and that the cost of assistance to able-bodied unemployed is made a national charge. You cannot expect huge industrial areas, stricken as they have been, to be able to pay the real costs that fall upon those areas through unemployment. The Secretary of State for Scotland is bound to see that there is only one way out, and that is by taking the whole responsibility for every penny local authorities have spent since the promise was given.

10.7 p.m.

Mr. BROCKLEBANK: I very seldom address the House, and I do not propose to do so now for more than 30 seconds. I merely wish to state publicly in the House that I quite clearly associate


myself with every word spoken by the hon. Gentleman the Member for the West Derby Division of Liverpool (Mr. Fyfe).

Resolution to be reported To-morrow.

Orders of the Day — IMPORT DUTIES ACT, 1932.

10.10 p.m.

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Dr. Burgin): I beg to move,
That the Additional Import Duties (No. 23) Order, 1935, dated the thirty-first day of July, nineteen hundred and thirty-five, made by the Treasury under the Import Duties Act, 1932, a copy of which was presented to this House on the said thirty-first day of July, nineteen hundred and thirty-five, be approved.
There are other Orders on the Papers—Nos. 24, 25, 26, 30, 31, 32 and 33, and with your permission, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House, I would suggest that we might take these Orders altogether as was the custom in the last Parliament. As this is the first batch of Import Duties Orders, perhaps it would be convenient if I state what has been found to be the convenient practice hitherto. The practice hitherto has been that the Minister introducing these Orders has made a general introductory speech notifying the House of the principal points that were covered by the new Orders, and has then invited questions on any Order to which the House attaches particular importance and has made a speech in reply. Hon. Members will appreciate that that permits an individual vote being taken on any single Order, but at the same time gives the Minister the opportunity of dealing with the Orders in one speech. Unless objection is taken to that course, I would like to adopt that method on this occasion.

Mr. ALEXANDER: If I say that we have no objection to that to-night, it must not be taken that we agree to it as setting up a precedent.

Dr. BURGIN: I understand the right hon. Gentleman's point. It is a matter that can be dealt with on each occasion.

Mr. SPEAKER: On previous occasions, of course, it has always been done by consent of the House. It has been put to the House, not formally but informally, and the House has given

consent. Of course hon. Members are entitled to vote on any particular Order.

Mr. ALEXANDER: I only wish to point out that there might be times when Orders ought to be taken separately and we do not want it made a rule. On this occasion I think we might take them together.

Mr. SPEAKER: It has always been done with the approval of the House. If any Member raises objection, the Orders must be taken separately.

Dr. BURGIN: The eight Orders which are now before the House do not, as far as I am aware, involve any great issue of principle. That was stated by the Prime Minister on 3rd December, and is reported in Column 77 of the OFFICIAL REPORT. I think when hon. Members have heard the explanation I am about to give they will confirm that view. Two of these Orders, No. 23 and No. 24, which deal respectively with synthetic nitrogenous fertilisers and with steel tubes, are designed for a similar purpose, that is, to protect the home market from foreign imports owing to the breakdown of international agreements which have governed imports of these products in the past. Hon. Members will appreciate that there are more methods than one of protecting the home market, and that perhaps a cartel may work satisfactorily. Both these Orders, No. 23 and No. 24, are rendered necessary by the breakdown of international cartel arrangements which have hitherto operated in these particular trades. Order No. 23 imposes additional duties in the form of a specific duty of £4 a ton on foreign synthetic nitrogenous fertilisers.
The test of the adequacy or otherwise of a duty may be examined in many ways. The productive capacity of makers of these fertilisers both here and abroad is very greatly in excess of consumption. Some countries have prohibited imports except under licence and have taken other steps to protect their industries. The manufacture of fertilisers covered by this Order have given satisfactory assurances regarding prices. I would like to emphasise that. Manufacturers of these fertilisers have given satisfactory assurances with regard to prices. That means, of course, the price at which the fertilisers will be sold to the farmer. An agreement has been reached between this


country and certain Continental countries and Chile. Neither Japan nor the United States is a party to that agreement, and the House will understand that this specific duty, which is a new duty, is necessary to cope with the possibility of imports from Japan and the United States. I shall be very happy to deal with questions with regard to this or any other of the Orders. I have the details of imports, prices, home manufacture and all other relevant considerations available and hon. Members who are interested will, no doubt, put their specific points. For the moment I am making a general review of the whole of the Orders.
Order No. 24, which also is necessitated by the breakdown of a cartel, imposes specific duties on certain kinds of steel tubes in which competition at very low prices has been experienced. Tubes of this particular kind have been sold in some of our overseas markets at prices below our cost of production and, what is perhaps a greater factor of interest to the House, they have been sold at prices less than half the protected home market price of the country of origin. Since 1932 the imports of these tubes have been relatively small, chiefly because of the international tube cartel. Before the tube cartel, tubes of this kind came largely from Germany, the United States and Belgium. Orders 26, 30, 31 and 32—I am not proceeding chronologically for a definite reason—are on the same lines as a number of additional Import Duties Orders which have been confirmed by Parliament in recent months. That is to say, they are designed to produce a similar degree of protection by means of alternative specific duties, and they are brought in to increase the duty on the cheaper ranges of goods without affecting the duty on the more expensive goods. It is a swing from ad valorem to specific, a practice which the House has found on a number of occasions has been a definite advantage. Order No. 26 imposes a duty of 3d. a 1,000 on certain eyelets of metal. The previous duty was 20 per cent. ad valorem. The whole trade is quite small. Most of the imports come from Italy. The effect of, the specific duty increases the duty on the cheaper range of goods, leaving the more expensive untouched.
Order No. 30 deals with oil baize, a curious substance, of which there is very little. The specific duty is 2½d. a pound as an alternative to a 20 per cent. duty. Imports come from the United States and they are less than a million square yards. They consist of job lots. There is very little that disturbs a market more than a job lot. A job lot from the United States disturbs the United Kingdom market out of all proportion to the importance of the particular consignment. The duty will have the effect of discouraging United States manufacturers from disturbing our market instead of theirs by sending job lots at less than half the price of perfect goods. Order No. 31 imposes various rates of specific duty in place of the existing ad valorem duty of 20 per cent. In this trade Sheffield and Birmingham have captured a large share of the home market. New plant has been installed. When the duty was reduced to 20 per cent. in 1932 considerable competition was experienced from Germany at cut prices, with the result that the output of the United Kingdom plant has now been reduced to as low as 25 per cent. of capacity, and that means that, with the plant working at 25 per cent. of capacity, the whole production is made at a loss.
Order No. 32—that is the last of that particular series of four—imposes upon trunk and suit case hoops a minimum specific duty of three farthings per piece or 1½d. a pair. Imports come wholly from Germany. They amount to 500,000 pairs, worth some £12,000 a year, and on the average this duty amounts to about 25 per cent., or in the case of the cheaper hoops about 33⅓ per cent. The increase of duty on these cheaper hoops will amount to from 2d. to 4d. per trunk, and as the hoops last a long time the production costs of the makers of trunks should not mean that the price need be materially raised either to sellers or to buyers.
Of the remaining two Orders, Order No. 25—rubber tubing and piping—rectifies an anomaly. Such of these goods as have been in the past subject only to 10 per cent. ad valorem are now treated in the same way as other wholly manufactured rubber articles. They are now made subject to a duty of 20 per cent. An opportunity has been taken by Order No. 25 to make an alternative specific duty for the purpose of discouraging


attempts that are being made to import the cheaper type of Japanese garden-hose piping.
Order No. 33—and I apologise to the House for being obliged to give so much detail—imposes an additional duty of 10 per cent. on staves, whether hollow or bent. One effect of this Order has been to charge that additional duty on cylindrical sawn staves which have undergone a simple sawing process, and under the new Order the additional duty will not be charged on staves not further prepared than sawn. Orders 27, 28 and 29 do not require affirmative resolutions because they are all dealing with reductions. The House understands that it is only necessary to come for approval affirmatively by resolution when the subject of the Order is an increase. I have now sketched out the type of material covered by this mixed bag of orders I have the detailed information relating to every one and perhaps it will be more convenient if we take the Orders as a whole and ask questions on specific matters.

10.25 p.m.

Mr. ALEXANDER: We are at the opening stages of a new Parliament, and we have to remember that during the previous Parliament there was executed, without a mandate at that time from the people, a complete fiscal revolution. In the carrying out of that fiscal revolution, although a small and gallant band did their best to deal with the proposals as they were put through, the actual plan laid down by the Government for the Import Duties Act and its procedure has always made it very difficult to check and properly criticise the proposals which the Government put into operation. In this new Parliament we ought to give adequate attention to the proposals which come before the House from time to time for additional duties, whether by way of ad valorem duties or by specific duties.
It is significant that we have just listened to a short sketch of what the duties will do, but there has not been the slightest real argument for them in the speech of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade. On the last occasion on which I was able to address the House on the fiscal issue, the hon. Member and his chief were pillars of the Free Trade faith in another part of the House. They are perhaps the most reprehensible of all

the advocates of the kind of duties put before the House to-night, because they both know that they are sinning against the light. When we come to deal with the actual duties, it is well to call the attention of new Members to the extent to which this procedure injures many sections of British taxpayers. We had a very ancient and honourable tradition that no man should be taxed in this country unless this House had said so, but we are dealing to-night with a whole series of Orders, some of which have been in operation since the 31st July and some since the 1st of August, without any real consideration by the House as to whether the specific taxes were fair and just to the citizens. The citizen has had to pay them, and on 12th December the Government come forward and say: "Will you give final approval to these taxes, which have been levied without specific authority from this House?"
Now that the House is returning to a better balanced and more sane consideration of these matters we ought to see to it that the citizens get a better opportunity for the protection of their interests. The reason why I mention that—I hope I am not egotistical or putting myself in a special position—is that I am perhaps the only Member of this House who regularly finds it necessary to appear before the Import Duties Advisory Committee to state specific trade objections to proposals for increased duties or to deal with applications for special variations by way of drawbacks. Listening to-night to the Parliamentary Secretary explaining why these additional duties should put put on, I am confirmed in my impression that the machinery set up for dealing with this kind of duty in the course of the fiscal revolution which the country has gone through, has involved us in the worst kind of practices, corrupt bargaining and corrupt agreements that we have ever had described by all the authorities on fiscal procedure, from Henry George to Professor Thompson. I have to appear before the Advisory Committee again and again. I find one or more members of the Import Duties Committee sitting in camera to hear the applicants for the duty and the objectors against it. You hear on occasions some objectors to the duty declare that they wholly object in principle to the application for an increase in the duty, but, nevertheless, they have met privately,


before they go into the tribunal, the applicants for the duty and, on a consideration that they may get special consideration for drawbacks or for a particular section of their trade which has some advantage in the export market, they are quite prepared to collect from the home market all that is required by the applicant industry. No one is ever heard there, except myself as representing the Co-operative Society, putting the case for the consumers of this country.
When we come to deal with this sort of duty and have to listen to the Parliamentary Secretary what does he do? With the exception of reading a few sentences out of the printed reports of this council of three, the Import Duties Advisory Committee, which in a fiscal sense is as much a council of three as the council of three at Venice, nobody has any adequate lead or advice at all as to what is the real argumentative basis for and against the duty, and the House has suddenly, usually at a rather late hour I find on looking up the OFFICIAL REPORT, been called upon either to approve or reject. It is one of the gravest possible deteriorations in British Parliamentary procedure, in regard to the method of taxing the people that has taken place within the last three or four years, and I think it is a good thing that now we have a somewhat stronger Opposition in numbers, instead of those who have so gallantly led the Opposition for the last three years, so that on these questions we can give closer attention and criticism than in the past.
Let me now look at the first duty proposed—a duty of £4 per ton as recommended in Order No. 23 on nitrogenous commodities. We are told that this duty is necessary because of a breakdown in the international cartel. In a single sentence there could not be painted a better word picture of how this kind of fiscal jugglery works. All that really counts is the interests of the capitalist combine—the user, the citizen, does not count at all. If they can make out a case in order to maintain a certain percentage profit return on their shares well and good, but sooner or later thieves, apparently, fall out again and this fiscal procedure is undertaken to prevent things again coming into their own. They seek to prevent what is going to be useful to consumers through the breakdown of the

international cartel by introducing a duty in between. This is a special example of that kind of procedure. Look at the actual commodities in this Order. I suppose there is only really one large concern interested in this particular duty—Imperial Chemical Industries. You have the various chemicals connected with the basis of ammonia and like substances, some of which will be useful as fertilisers for agriculture.
The Parliamentary Secretary says that reasonable assurances have been given as regards prices. To whom have these assurances been given? Have the farmers been given a specific pledge as to the actual prices which they will be charged over a given period. If so can the hon. gentleman tell us what prices have been fixed by the chemical combine, Imperial Chemical Industries, for the main fertilisers, over the next two years, in order that the farmer who is considering his plans for the next two seasons may have some idea of what his fertilising costs will be. From my experience of appearing before the tribunal I have little doubt as to what these assurances have been. I know how I have been met and how others have been met who appear before the Committee with regard to these matters. When you go there with a certain amount of timidity and trembling to say where a proposed duty is going to hurt your business or your commodity you are usually told, "Do not worry too much Mr. Smith or Mr. Jones or Mr. Alexander. If you find this duty pressing a little heavily upon you you can always come back and ask for some protection for your own commodity." So it goes on and on, growing like a snowball. My experience is that these proposals come back over and over again, each time with a new request for a duty upon some other commodity. I shall hope to illustrate that presently in regard to another of these duties.
The second point I wish to make with regard to these chemicals is this: I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman has studied the paper dealing with this duty, but I notice it is said that these particular commodities will be most valuable in connection with munition services—chemical services. If it is proposed to entrench a large combine, with high protective duties, in regard to commodities which are not only valuable to agriculture for fertilisers but which may


become vital to the nation in regard to munition services, then I do not think I should be doing my duty to my colleagues if I did not say that in our view, from the munitions point of view alone, that industry ought not to be left in the hands of private individuals. The Parliamentary Secretary may smile. I wish I could go back to his college days and read some of the lectures to which he has listened and some of the utterances which he himself made, in his student days, on this question. If he would give us some of those statements of his what a revelation it would be. At any rate, we make the claim that if the protection of the State is being given in a case of this kind, and if, as we are told, the safety of the nation is likely to be involved in time of war, then this industry should be put under public control.
I turn to Order No. 24, which proposes an increased duty on iron and steel tubes. This also, says the Parliamentary Secretary, has been rendered necessary by a breakdown in an international cartel. I hope the hon. Gentleman will be able to tell us whether there is any sign of this cartel being patched up again. We know what happened with regard to the general steel industry. A great deal was said earlier in the year about a very steep increase in the general scale of iron and steel duties as a weapon against people who broke down one cartel. It has been said since that that weapon has been to some extent successful. That may be but, if so, perhaps the hon. Gentleman will tell us, as this duty has been on since August, what has been its effect in regard to iron and steel tubes. I cannot find from commercial men that there is any great financial stringency in this section of the iron and steel industry which calls for high protective duties. I would like to quote from the "Economist" for 30th November, a reference to a company's report, headed "Tube Investments"—a very interesting revelation regarding this industry which so badly needs protection against the wicked foreign cartel which has broken down:
The progress and development in every branch of this undertaking, to which the directors refer in their report, is amply reflected in the profit figures. Total profits have jumped from £371,370 to £502,784, and earnings for dividends, at £493,863, are well over twice those of 1932–3. Such

geometric expansion of profits forms the happiest context for share bonuses.
I see that the reserves of this tube investment combine have increased from £28,000 in 1933 to £230,000 in 1935 and that the price of the £1 shares is now standing at 69s. This is the industry which specially requires a dole at the hands of this House to-night. This is just the kind of section of the iron and steel industry which is so important and vital in its production for our raw materials and other sections of industry. Let us take two illustrations. You have had a very good boom in the last two or three years in connection with the great increase in housing accommodation. In the furniture industry and in the new types of modern furniture which are being supplied to the small and modern house, the iron and steel tube basis is very important. Do not let anyone think that the duty you are putting on iron and steel tubes is something which passes nebulously into some large form of manufacture and will not be paid by the individual householder and consumer. Every penny of this tax will be paid by the individual householder and consumer in so far as it goes into that type of tubes.
I think this is an appropriate occasion on which to remind the House of that extraordinary speech delivered, I think, during the Election by Lord Nuffield at the dinner in London of the Morris Commercial Cars, when he referred to his disgust at the methods and practices of those who were enjoying the benefits of these high protective duties in forcing up the price of his raw material until he was having to pay one-third more for the raw steel for the purpose of his manufacture than were his competitors in the highly protected United States of America, and he referred to the kind of people behind this application to the House to-night as leaning back in their comfortable armchairs, smoking their large cigars, and being prosperous behind their 33⅓ per cent. duties. This is the kind of industry to which you are asking us to give this duty, and the motor car and similar industries are going to suffer in consequence.
I understand that the Government intend to submit a very large programme for the expansion of armaments and that they are going to have a very large expansion, if they get their way, in naval


provision. What sort of guarantees can the Parliamentary Secretary give us to-night as to what will be the effect on the market for British produced tubes for munition purposes? I hope he will be able to tell us something about that and whether there is a form of agreement with the Government that in return for their largesse there will not be undue profits made out of them. I have grave doubts having regard to what has happened on the share markets with regard to the aviation companies. It does not need anybody with a great deal of special city commercial intelligence to understand what has taken place in the flotation of 12 separate new companies in the City of London in anticipation of profits arising from what the Government are going to do by way of an expansion of aerial armaments and by special subsidy in the promotion of civil aviation. Unless you have proper guarantees in regard to such a duty as this, it is unreasonable, if it is not actually criminal, to ask the House at short notice always to be voting increased duties of the kind.
I will confine my closing remarks to only one other of the many duties that the Parliamentary Secretary has so very briefly outlined to-night, that is, the duty on oil baize. The Parliamentary Secretary said there was not much of it. All that they were proposing to do here was to keep out a few odd job lots. My hon. Friends behind me know very well that a few odd job lots of oil baize may often be a very important thing to the poorest people. I do not think the Parliamentary Secretary knew very much of any of the duties about which he was talking. He was making a very good lawyer's statement from a brief supplied to him. If he knew anything about oil baize, he would know that the poorest people, in districts where they have not yet been given houses with tiled sculleries, special draining boards and tiled dressers, use these job lots of oil baize a good deal. This tax, however, is not being imposed merely to deal with odd job lots. It is because they use to a considerable extent a substance called linseed oil in the manufacture of oil baize, and on Monday the Parliamentary Secretary will come along with a proposal for a second addition to the duty on linseed oil.
Linseed oil was the subject of one of the special applications for a duty to which I have given particular attention. It enters into a lot of other things. It enters, for instance, into oil cakes for the farmer by the use of the residue from the crushing process. It enters into paint and varnish, and into the manufacture of linoleum and floorcloth. It enters, also, into the manufacture of oil baize. I never remember in all my experience of public life anything which nauseated me more than the proceedings before the Import Duties Advisory Committee on linseed oil. The applicants for a duty said that they were really Free Traders and that they had never desired a duty. When 10 per cent. duty was put on their product, however, they said "Very well, thank you." That was followed by a tragedy and it was the Ottawa Conference. At Ottawa it seemed that they had almost gone to the extent of their consideration when they found that, although something had been done for all the Dominions, nothing had been done for India; and some bright person turned round to see if anything could be done for India. Nothing but linseed oil was left, and they put a 10 per cent. duty on it, but as it would require the laying down of a great deal more additional plant to supply the demand, it was impossible for that to be done. The Argentine was able to push up the price by the amount of the duty, and the supplies became exhausted. What was to be done? We could not get it back from the farmers, who were already depressed. Then they turned to some alternative form. There were the paint manufacturers, still opposed in principle, who said that if only they had the support of the applicants it would be possible to collect from the home market all that was needed. Similarly the manufacturers concerned.
Nothing could be more illustrative of the cant and the humbug and the logrolling that go on behind this type of fiscal system and manipulation. From my point of view, and I think I speak also for Members of my party, I say that if that is the kind of thing which is supposed to be the great via media for achieving recovery, the sooner we get rid of it the better. There will be other opportunities in the course of this Par-


liament for dealing with specific duties. But after we have had the reply of the Parliamentary Secretary I hope that the House will divide on at least one or two of these Orders, to show what it really thinks about this latest example of the Government's manipulation. There was a good deal of talk during the Election about the tremendous asset which tariffs have been in the so-called recovery of the country. I have always noticed when I have been looking at the examples of industrial and commercial recovery in the country that the Government are usually careful to build their case on sterling values. Even then they have a pretty bad record to show when they begin to compare 1934 and 1935 with a normal year like 1929. [Interruption.]
I have read in the newspapers of the fact that from 1929 the world was passing through an economic blizzard. The Government quote it when it suits their purpose and deny it when they want to make a special case. One had only to listen to the very good maiden speech of the hon. Member for Everton (Mr. Kirby) last week to see the effects of this policy on the ports in the actual suffering and poverty of the people. Look at the experience at the ports—Glasgow, Leith, Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle, Hull, Southampton, Cardiff, and all the way round.

Mr. CRAVEN-ELLIS: Southampton has not declined.

Mr. ALEXANDER: All I have to say is that if you look at the weights of goods—

Mr. CRAVEN-ELLIS: They are in excess of what they were in 1931.

Mr. ALEXANDER: I should say that at Southampton there is no real improvement in the weight of goods, but I will check it up with the hon. Member and, if he is able to show a, difference, I will guarantee that he will find that it is the one exception which proves the rule. When you look at the actual weight of goods exported you find that it is far below what it was in anything like a normal period. Another thing which has been clearly shown, in a brochure by Mr. F. W. Hudson, is that the progress of our rate of recovery in regard to our overseas trade has only been about one-sixth of the rate of recovery at the time when we were recovering without all this

incubus of fiscal manipulation and interference in trade between the various nations. From all those points of view we criticise these proposals, as we shall continue to examine and criticise equally stupid and futile proposals in the future.

10.58 p.m.

Mr. LOUIS SMITH: I think the House has listened with great interest and, I may say, with a certain amount of patience, so far as my colleagues on this side are concerned, to the speech of the right hon. Member for the Hillsborough Division of Sheffield (Mr. Alexander). He told us that he has on many occasions appeared before the Import Duties Advisory Committee, no doubt to look after the interests of the large co-operative stores in the country, to see how imported goods might come into this country at no greater cost than would allow him to sell a proportion of them. It was somewhat surprising to me to hear that the right hon. Gentleman should, in his speech, suggest that the company in which he is interested—

Mr. ALEXANDER: I am interested in no company.

Mr. SMITH: Well, we will say the co-operative societies, should be so keenly interested to appear before the Advisory Committee to prevent certain duties which those interested in manufacturing goods in this country think advisable in the interests of industry. I think, too, that the right hon. Gentleman's criticism of the methods adopted at meetings of the Import Duties Advisory Committee is unfortunate, because I am one of those, and I believe a very large number of hon. Members agree with me, who think that no such great change in the fiscal system could have been made in any country in the world with less log-rolling, with less chance of corruption, than the great change which has taken place during the last three or four years.
The suggestion in the case of these two first recommendations that the House should not give an affirmative decision because of the failure of a cartel, seems unfortunate. British manufacturers, by co-operating with foreign manufacturers in similar trades and trying to obtain a fair share of world trade for this country, have been of great advantage to employment, and during the last three or


four years have greatly affected the figures of employment. It is very surprising that during the Election many Opposition hon. Members, when asked what their opinion and their decision would be with regard to the fiscal system, said very little. They said that they did not intend to make any change until they had given the matter very careful consideration. After the Election, and upon the first occasion that import duties come up in the House, we hear a very striking speech from one of the leaders of the Opposition, saying that the duties are of no use and opposing them in every possible way.
I noticed that the right hon. Gentleman referred in his speech to several of these recommendations, but to the only recommendation where there is some work done in the right hon. Gentleman's own constituency, he made no reference. With regard to tubes, the right hon. Gentleman made reference to important figures respecting one of the finest tube manufacturing companies in the world. We are proud on this side of the House that that firm have done so well during the last 12 months, and to know that they have been so energetic and enterprising as to put down important plant and to have beaten all other firms in the world in the production of best quality tubes. Reference was also made to the point that the consumer was not adequately represented before the Import Duties Advisory Committee and that only manufacturers were adequately represented.
The first recommendation taken to-night deals with synthetic ammonia and nitrogen. I am told, and have also seen it referred to in the Press since the application was granted, that not only were several representatives present of the National Farmers' Union, which is the leading organisation in this country representing farmers, but also two or three representatives of the Corn Merchants' Association. They appeared before the Import Duties Advisory Committee and strongly protested on behalf of the consumers regarding this application. There is not the slightest doubt that a very long time was given by the three Members of the Committee to the application and that it was only recommended to this House after the Com-

mittee were assured that agriculturists would not suffer in any way.
I would like to remind the right hon. Gentleman that the farmer has obtained during the last year or two sulphate of ammonia, which is the usual form used by the agriculturists of this country, at an average price much less than at any time since the War, and at practically half the price that it was sold at just after the War. Compound fertilisers, in which sulphate of ammonia is one of the chief ingredients, are sold at a less price than they have ever been sold at in this country. The price has been gradually declining for the last 10 years. That is due particularly to the much more efficient factories that have been put up in this country, and to the fact that one of the largest firms in the country, Imperial Chemical Industries, has established at Billingham one of the finest and most efficient factories in the world, after considerable research work, and has not only given the agriculturist very cheap nitrogen, but has also provided for this country the material that will be required in an emergency, and in that way, no doubt, has been a very great asset to the country as a whole. I would conclude by saying that we on this side of the House believe that it certainly would not have been possible to provide anything like the amount of employment that has been provided for our people in this country during the last four or five years had it not been for the change in our fiscal system, and we shall certainly support the Parliamentary Secretary in asking the House to-night for an affirmative reply to these recommendations.

11.7 p.m.

Mr. W. ROBERTS: I regret that I was unable to be present to hear the speech of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade, but there are one or two points arising out of these recommendations which I should like to bring to the notice of the House. In the first place, the duty No. 23, regarding nitrogenous fertilisers, raises a number of questions which I think the House should consider carefully. It is agreed that this duty, which is a prohibitive duty, is being imposed in order to strengthen the hands of the British producers in negotiating with their foreign competitors. The result of the duty will be in fact that British


consumers, and among them farmers, will be paying a higher rate than they have been paying in recent years, and a higher rate than their competitors abroad who are supplied with the same manures. That seems to me to be a situation which calls for inquiry.
I know that this industry is not only of importance to agriculturists the world over, but is of importance also to the country at large. In the old days it used to be said that we turned our ploughshares into swords. Nowadays it is truer to say that we turn our fertilisers into high explosives. But the question I want to ask is whether, supposing that it is necessary to impose this duty in order to keep the industry at work—and here I grant the Government a point with which I do not agree—it is right that one section of the community should bear the cost of that national insurance against future war? Is there not some other method? This industry has received very considerable help from the Government ever since it was established after the War, and I protest on behalf of agricultural consumers that it is unfair to saddle them with a burden for the sake of an industry which, if it has to receive some special assistance, should receive it at the bands of the nation at large.

Mr. L. SMITH: May I ask the hon. Member what grade, or what class or what type of fertiliser he has in mind when he states that the farmer is paying a higher price for fertilisers than last year, or the year before, or the year before that?

Mr. ROBERTS: Yes, I shall be very glad to give the figures because I am a purchaser of these particular fertilisers. I think—I am speaking from recollection—that three years ago I paid £5 5s. per ton for sulphate of ammonia delivered on my farm. The present price—prices have been rising steadily since then—is £7.

Mr. SMITH: I had in mind compound fertilisers.

Mr. ROBERTS: I occasionally buy compound fertilisers, but I find it cheaper to buy straight fertilisers—sulphate of ammonia and others. I am very glad the hon. Gentleman interrupted, because he raises the point I want to impress on the House. Granted that the representatives of the Farmers' Union have agreed

to the stabilisation of prices at the present level, if—as is the case—similar fertilisers are being exported at a considerably lower price I suggest that the Farmers' Union should have, and could have obtained, a better bargain than merely getting an undertaking that prices should not be raised for a year or two. It was revealed by a question the other day that the Scottish Farmers' Union was not consulted on this point. I live not far from Scotland and I think probably the Scottish Farmers' Union would have been able to drive a rather harder bargain. I am not speaking for the Scottish Farmers' Union but I have experience of Scottish farmers' methods. This question may play a larger part in the future than it does at present.
In the development of scientific farming very considerable emphasis is laid on the use of sulphate of ammonia and other nitrogenous manures for the purpose—I am sorry to be slightly technical—of growing grass which can be dried and turned into a cattle food of very high feeding value. As soon as certain mechanical inventions have been perfected which will make that drying an economic proposition there may be a tremendous revolution in the whole of farming practice not only in this country but throughout the world. If that is so the chief raw materials for this feeding stuff will be these nitrogenous fertilisers and I for one regret very strongly that the price has been stabilised by means of these tariffs at such a high level. In a day or two we shall be asked to vote on another recommendation of the Advisory Committee. It refers to turkeys.

Mr. SPEAKER: We must wait until that particular Order is under discussion.

Mr. ROBERTS: The only other comment I wish to make is on Order No. 24, which deals with iron and steel tubes. I want to quote a statement made on behalf of the Iron and Steel Federation. It reads:
Attempts to revive the International Tube Cartel are likely to be hampered by the attitude of the German Tube Syndicate, which is reported to have expressed its lack of interest in a renewal. German tube exports have increased materially, mainly because of the use of barter.
The weapons of economic nationalism—tariffs, quotas, currency regulations and


the rest—have reduced trade between a number of countries to the most primitive form, the form of barter. If we arrange a transaction on the basis of barter, it means, unfortunately, that payment will be made in goods, and this is just a case where that payment has been made in goods and immediately the interests concerned go to the Advisory Committee and obtain tariffs which even stop the most primitive form of trade, which is barter. It is not as if this trade was of any great size. Only 9,000 tons of these goods have been imported during the first 10 months of this year, compared with 260,000 tons which have been exported, so that even that small degree of barter by which our exports could be stimulated is to be prevented.
With regard to the rest I will not detain the House. I will merely suggest that your gardens will cost you more and that one or two of these duties will press heavily on the handyman who buys cheap tools to do jobs about the house, a type of enterprising individual whom we should all wish to see encouraged.

Sir ROBERT SMITH: As Order No. 23 applies to Scotland, I should like the Minister to tell us if the Scottish Farmers' Union have agreed to it.

11.20 p.m.

Mr. PRICE: I wish to corroborate the statement which has been made by the hon. Member for North Cumberland (Mr. W. Roberts) as to the extreme importance in the interests of the vast farming industry of this country of artificial manure and that they should remain not only cheap, but, what is more important, should be stable in price. I agree with him that prices have hardened in recent years, but I am certain that they will be intensified if there are not certain guarantees that these duties should not be misused. I would refer in this connection to what the Prime Minister said in the Debate on the Address, when he suggested that those who were getting advantage from these duties should realise that they must pay back something to the State. As a grass farmer in the West of England I know how extremely important it is that manuring should take place over a period of years. You must plan your manuring. You take so many fields one year and pass on and come back again at the end of three or

four years. Agriculture must be planned, and it is a very long process. A good deal has to be invested in the industry and the return comes back after many years. I should like to know from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade what are the guarantees? He nodded his head when the question was asked just now, but we really want to know more about it in this House. Can he not, in his reply, give some better guarantee than just a nod of the head that these duties will not be abused, otherwise I shall certainly be inclined to vote against these Orders.

11.24 p.m.

Mr. McGHEE: I crave the indulgence of the House which is usual for a maiden speech. I am sorry to have to enter into a discussion upon such a controversial subject. I noticed that the hon. Member for Hallam (Mr. L. Smith) admitted that there had been a certain amount of log-rolling in connection with these duties. [An HON. MEMBER: "No."] The words used by the hon. Member were, I think, to the effect that there was less log-rolling in this country than in other countries, and that must mean that there is some log-rolling. From the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Hillsboro (Mr. Alexander) we may take it that there has been a certain amount of log-rolling, at least on this question.
The hon. Member for Hallam suggested that civilisation really began in 1931. The suggestion has been made in this House that industries have developed only since these protective tariffs were put on. I think it is true to say that in connection with the question of tubes the Sheepbridge Iron and Steel Company were leading the world even in pre-war days. While these protective tariffs have increased profits, it cannot be said that in any case they have increased wages. The House has been discussing to-night the deplorable state of Liverpool. Liverpool's deplorable condition is due to these tariffs. On the one hand you are handing high profits to the manufacturer, and on the other hand you are having to do something for the workers who are thrown out of work by these very same tariffs.
We have heard a lot about foreign adventurers in this House during this week and during the Election. I think it is


true to say that many Members of this House have described the Italian Government as going on a foreign adventure. The reason given for that was that the Italian Government had great difficulties at home, and that it was their business to direct the attention of their nationals to some foreign adventure. That happens with the tariff case. You get into difficulties at home, due to over-capitalisation and so on, and then you direct the attention of British workmen to the fact that the persons who are robbing him are Germans, French or Americans, or somebody else, instead of directing his attention to the fact that the robbers are here at home. We were promised that tariffs would cure the poverty problem. The hon. Member for Hallam had a very nice bill in the 1931 Election promising more work and more wages if the National Government were allowed to carry through their tariff policy. I think we were told that tariffs would increase the wages of the working classes. The wages of the working classes do not depend upon tariffs but upon the number of people who are seeking jobs. We in the Labour party know that these tariffs have not increased wages all over the country. We are prepared to admit that in the artificial silk industry you have given a certain amount of employment, but in doing that you have helped to destroy the cotton trade. You have redistributed unemployment by these tariffs.
When we were promised that tariffs would cure unemployment, there was no question of not doing the job properly. But immediately the Government got their tariff policy going they came to the House and said "This policy is not curing the terrible problem of unemployment. Therefore we must look for some ether types of medicine." They immediately turned to subsidies and quotas. If tariffs are claimed as a real cure, there was no need for these other things. If it was a cure the job ought to have been done after four years in office. My serious objection to this tariff policy is because I am an unrepentant pacifist. These tariff experiments in economic nationalism divide the peoples of the world, have created enmity and in the long run lead to war. Because of that I hope that the House will divide against these duties and thus show that there is in this country a large number of people

who are resolutely opposed to any attempt to divide the peoples of the world.

11.31 p.m.

Sir FRANCIS ACLAND: I want to congratulate the hon. Member on his speech. I rise only to ask a question. During the War when I had to make arrangements for the delivery of sulphate of ammonia products, I was able to do so and found three companies very good to deal with, and that when they made arrangements to deliver something to farmers at a certain price no difficulties arose. There is no doubt that they will observe the same tradition in the arrangement now made. But is it not right and reasonable that whatever arrangement has been made we should know about it fully, the prices that are guaranteed and for how long they are guaranteed? When a man is engaged in improving his grass he should know what he will have to pay for his fertilisers many years ahead. Can we be told definitely what the arrangements are, as then we shall be able to judge whether the farmers have agreed to this as being really in effect a reasonably low price, or whether they have agreed to it in default of having to put up with something very much worse.

11.32 p.m.

Dr. BURGIN: I can speak again only by leave of the House. On the discussions of these Orders there are always certain comments to which the Minister must pay attention, quite apart from specific questions that are put. But some hon. Members appear to think that it is an occasion when the abstract merits of Free Trade or control can be debated. They overlook entirely the fact that there is on the Statute Book the Import Duties Act, 1932, and that what we are doing here is to apply that Act—not discuss whether or not the Act should be enforced. I make that comment because in introducing these Orders it is not my duty to give reasons why they are made; that is the duty of the tribunal set up by this House. Nor is it my duty to comment on their method of taking evidence or conducting their inquiry; they are all covered by the Act of 1932, and as long as that is the law of the land my duty is to administer the Act and bring these Orders to the House for their approval. It is, of course, open to discuss any of those matters on an appro-


priate Resolution, but to-night we are considering detailed application of the Act, and such a procedure would not be the best way in which to handle our problem.
A second point is this. It is one thing to comply with the convenience of the House by making a short, general statement; it is another thing to give detailed arguments in support of each Order—which I have been criticised for not doing. I do not mind which course I follow. There are eight Orders and one could have made eight speeches giving the whole of the material with regard to each Order and probably it would then have been found that five or six of the Orders interested only a few people, that no questions arose on them and that the speeches in regard to them were redundant, while there were two or three to which the House desired to devote attention. These Orders have been in print and in the Vote Office for a considerable time and could have formed the subject-matter of questions if any hon. Member desired information on them—and questions were put in regard to fertilizers—in order to clear the air. That being so, I thought it much better to introduce them in a general speech and then to deal with any questions such as that put by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Cornwall (Sir F. Acland). He asked whether the House could have the details of the agreement made as to price in the case of fertilizers. Certainly. That is exactly what I offered in my opening statement to give the House, namely, the details on any point which interests hon. Members. In fact, particulars of these eight Orders cover such a variety of matters relating to history, geography, science and chemistry, that the amount of time required to go into them all would be prohibitive. I thought the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Hillsborough (Mr. Alexander) was going to thank us for having so arranged the business as to have these Orders taken at the reasonable hour of ten o'clock, but instead we had the old grievance about the late hour of the discussion. We are exceptionally fortunate to-night in that we have plenty of time in which to discuss these matters calmly, instead of being obliged to take the whole of them after eleven o'clock.
The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Hillsborough said he recollected that

in my dreadful political past, I held other views on the question of the exchange of goods than those indicated by this proposal. There is a difference, even at the seaside resort nearest to Sheffield, between high tide and low tide, and I am one of those who saw that when the balance of trade became adverse to this country new methods had to be adopted. [An HON. MEMBER: "You went in on the tide."] And a very good thing to go in on. One of the most interesting political spectacles which the House could see, is that of any Member for a Sheffield constituency objecting to tariffs. If there is any part of the country which is more devoutly thankful than Sheffield for the change in the fiscal system, I have yet to hear of it. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Hillsborough speaking with all the vigour and acumen of which he is capable used the old tag to the effect that occasionally thieves fall out. Other people besides those whom he presumably had in mind fall out on this question. He forgot that tariffs are of importance to some employés, and he will find in the papers relating to these Orders constant references to the need for protecting the home market against certain forms of unfair invasion. That is a type of "falling out" which the Orders are designed to prevent. In referring to the first Order he spoke as though the only makers of sulphate of ammonia in this country were the combine called the Imperial Chemical Industries. There are 330 different concerns making this fertiliser, and employing 12,000 operatives. As the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Cornwall said, many gas companies are within that category and the same right hon. Gentleman's personal practical experience has been that those gentlemen keep to whatever bargains they make. The idea that the fertiliser industry is one great hydra-headed trust with which there is no competition is quite fanciful. It bears no relation to the facts, and shows a failure on the part of those who put it forward to have read in detail the very recommendations which are being submitted to the House.
The right hon. Gentleman asked what guarantees there were, what they were about, and to whom they had been given, and the right hon. Member for North Cornwall said: "Give us details." Certainly. There are two safeguards, those given to the National Farmers' Union in


respect of what one may call sulphate of ammonia, and those in respect of all these composite fertilisers under the heading of the Fertiliser Manufacturers Association, Limited. The hon. Member for North Cumberland (Mr. W. Roberts), to whose speech we listened with such interest, as this House always does to an hon. Member talking with technical and accurate knowledge, asked why prices have been maintained at such a high level, and he indicated that these safeguards were merely to prevent an increase, but that is not the case. The safeguards contain undertakings not to increase prices except in so far as they are justified by an increase in the cost of labour or raw materials, and they also contain provisions that if material costs or labour costs decrease, the retail prices are proportionately to be decreased as well. We must at least give to those in charge of the negotiations credit for thinking both of the upward and the downward trends, and these matters have been taken into account.
There are detailed schedules—this is in reply to the right hon. Member for North Cornwall—of every conceivable type of fertiliser, with the actual price which is not to be exceeded. I do not think I need read at length lists of schedules. I think rather the system which the hon Gentleman suggested should be adopted, of putting down questions and receiving answers, is more convenient, but I say at once that the undertaking in terms means that the manufacturers agree not to increase prices unless their cost of material or labour increase, to decrease prices in so far as their costs of labour or materials decrease, and those prices are themselves scheduled with regard to the specific commodities, their destination, their method of delivery, and the time of the year.

Sir F. ACLAND: Is the price for sulphate of ammonia for a whole year, or does it vary from month to month? What is the basis rate—£7, £6, £8, or what?

Dr. BURGIN: The price, I think, is a Spring price, which would suggest that it is not for throughout the year. It is £7 5s. 0d. per ton, delivered at the farmer's station in six-ton lots. The raw material is worked out in detail, and the incidence of the cost of raw materials, on production costs, of ammonium sulphate

is also worked out, and the quantity of pyrites used in manufacture.

Mr. PRICE: Is nitro chalk included?

Dr. BURGIN: Nitro chalk is included. It is an item in the schedule which I have. I want to deal quite frankly with the House and to give such information as I have, but it is immensely difficult to know what information to discard when there are so many and such diverse inquiries. The next Order to which I think any detailed attention was directed was the tube Order, again a steel article for which this country has made itself famous—the manufacture of tubes. A number of statements was made by the right hon. Member for Hillsborough, and his question really was, "Is not all this story of cartel some sort of bluff? Are we not being told that the reason for putting on this duty at all is that the cartel has broken down, is there not some probability that the cartel is going to be built up, and is not this duty in consequence really unnecessary?"
The Import Duties Advisory Committee have set out in very considerable detail the grounds upon which they have been induced to make this Order. It is within my own personal knowledge that the existence of the tube cartel has meant a certain security for British manufacture and employment in tubes. Immediately the breakdown of the cartel becomes evident the possibility of foreign competition on a large scale means the introduction of an uncertainty into an ordered market. That element of uncertainty is not good for anybody, and the Import Duties Advisory Committee come to the rescue and say, "This uncertainty, the possibility of the breakdown of the cartel, the possibility of large stocks of cheap tubes coming on to this market, and an uncontrolled world position constitutes such a menace that we think it right, cartel or no cartel, to introduce a duty and to arrive at the same result as if there were an effective cartel." It has been done by a method which can be varied if necessary by the Committee, and in this way we have a bargaining weapon introduced in support of the industry in their negotiations with foreign countries which we never had before. I can only say, from my experience in the conducting of negotiations with foreign countries, that it is hard to under-estimate the value of having


a Government behind any industry in international negotiations. Never before 1932 was there the possibility of the Government lending a substantial hand in the conduct of negotiations with a great foreign industry, whereas, on the other side of the table, it was a matter of routine practice to have foreign governments lined up behind a foreign industry with which a British industry was endeavouring to make a bargain. Nobody who has had any experience of it can fail to realise that the present procedure is infinitely better, and has greatly advanced the possibilities of British industry maintaining a useful degree of employment.
I am asked questions about oil baize as if there were something peculiarly sinister about this Lancaster cloth, as it is called. The right hon. Gentleman made great play with a rather fanciful description of what happened at Ottawa. As one who had a great deal to do with the linseed negotiations, I had difficulty in following either the right hon. Gentleman's geography or his history. When he told the House so luridly how he had become nauseated with linseed oil, I felt a little confused and thought he had mixed it up with castor oil. In reality, the value of the linseed oil used in the manufacture of the cheaper imported oil baize would not exceed £200 in a whole year. The right hon. Gentleman in this matter has barked up the wrong tree, for he has some sort of idea that this material is linoleum. It is not. It is Lancaster cloth, a small trade or industry, and it is to be protected, if I have the power to do it, from the job lots from the United States, which seems to provide merriment to hon.

Gentlemen opposite, but which is deadly accurate in description. I doubt whether there is any other point that I need raise at this stage except to say this in conclusion. Hon. Members of the official Opposition, in pouring scorn on protective duties, are always careful not to state whether they are in favour of the open door or of any form of control. The hon. Gentleman who made an interesting maiden speech said he was an unrepentent pacifist, but he did not say that he was an unrepentent Free Trader. He talked of Liverpool, but—

Mr. McGHEE: rose—

Dr. BURGIN: Does the hon. Member wish to intervene?

Mr. McGHEE: Yes. I am quite prepared to state that I am an unrepentant Free Trader, and I hope that if we ever get power we shall clear away this log-rolling business.

Mr. SPEAKER: The question of Free Trade and Protection is not before the House.

Dr. BURGIN: Then I think I have replied to all the point which have been raised.

Sir R. W. SMITH: May I have a reply to my question?

Dr. BURGIN: The answer is that no recent complaint of any character and no inquiry have been made by the Scottish National Farmers' Union. Some inquiries and investigations were made, but they were not of a recent character.

Question put.

The House divided: Ayes, 159; Noes, 89.

Division No. 12.]
AYES.
[11.51 p.m.


Adams, S. V. T. (Leeds, W.)
Bull, B. B.
Davidson, Rt. Hon. Sir J. C. C.


Agnew, Lieut.-Comdr. P. G.
Burgin, Dr. E. L.
Davies, Major G. F. (Yeovil)


Allen, Lt.-Col. J. Sandeman (B'kn'hd)
Cartland, J. R. H.
Davison, Sir W. H.


Amery, Rt. Hon. L. C. M. S.
Carver, Major W. H.
Dorman-Smith, Major R. H.


Anderson, Sir A. Garrett (C. of Ldn.)
Cary, R. A.
Duckworth, G. A. V. (Salop)


Apsley, Lord
Channon, H.
Duckworth, W. R. (Moss Side)


Aske, Sir R. W.
Chapman, A. (Rutherglen)
Dugdale, Major T. L.


Baldwin-Webb, Col. J.
Clarry, R. G.
Duggan, H. J.


Balniel, Lord
Clydesdale, Marquess of
Duncan, J. A. L.


Barclay-Harvey, C. M.
Colfox, Major W. P.
Dunne, P. R. R.


Baxter, A. Beverley
Colville, Lt.-Col. D. J.
Eckersley, P. T.


Beauchamp, Sir B. C.
Cook, T. R. A. H. (Norfolk, N.)
Elliot, Rt. Hon. W. E.


Beit, Sir A. L.
Cooper, Rt. Hn. T. M. (E'nburgh, W.)
Emery, J. F.


Bird, Sir R. B.
Courtauld, Major J. S.
Emrys-Evans, P. V.


Blindell, J.
Courthope, Col. Sir G. L.
Entwistle, C. F.


Bower, Comdr. R. T.
Craven-Ellis, W.
Errington, E.


Boyce, H. Leslie
Crookshank, Capt. H. F. C.
Evans, Capt. A. (Cardiff, S.)


Brocklebank, C. E. R.
Croom-Johnson, R. P.
Everard, W. L.


Brown, Rt. Hon, E. (Leith)
Crowder, J. F. E.
Fox, Sir G. W. G.


Browne, A. C. (Belfast, W.)
Cruddas, Col. B.
Fraser, Capt. Sir I.




Freemantle, Sir F. E.
Macnamara, Capt. J. R. J.
Ropner, Colonel L.


Furness, S. N.
Margesson, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. D. R.
Ross, Major Sir R. D. (L'nderry)


Fyfe, D. P. M.
Maxwell, S. A.
Ross Taylor, W. (Woodbridge)


Gledhill, G.
Mayhew, Lt.-Col. J.
Rowlands, G.


Goodman, Col. A. W.
Mills, Sir F. (Leyton, E.)
Russell, R. J. (Eddisbury)


Greene, W. P. C. (Worcester)
Mills, Major J. D. (New Forest)
Salt, E. W.


Gridley, Sir A. B.
Mitchell, H. (Brentford and Chiswick)
Sanderson, Sir F. B.


Grimston, R. V.
Mitcheson, G. G.
Scott, Lord William


Guest, Maj. Hon. O. (C'mb'rw'll, N. W.)
Moore, Lieut.-Col. T. C. R.
Shute, Colonel Sir J. J.


Gunston, Capt. D. W.
Morris, J. P. (Salford, N.)
Simmonds, O. E.


Guy, J. C. M.
Morris, O. T. (Cardiff, E.)
Smiles, Lieut.-Colonel Sir W. D.


Hacking, Rt. Hon. D. H.
Morris-Jones, Dr. J. H.
Smith, L. W. (Hallam)


Hanbury, Sir C.
Morrison, W. S. (Cirencester)
Somervell, Sir D. B. (Crewe)


Hannon, P. J. H.
Nall, Sir J.
Spens, W. P.


Hartington, Marquess of
Neven-Spence, Maj. B. H.
Stourton, Hon. J. J.


Heilgers, Captain F. F. A.
O'Neill, Major Rt. Hon. Sir Hugh
Strauss, E. A. (Southwark, N.)


Hepworth, J.
Orr-Ewing, I. L.
Strauss, H. G. (Norwich)


Herbert, A. P. (Oxford U.)
Palmer, G. E. H.
Strickland, Captain W. F.


Herbert, Major J. A. (Monmouth)
Penny, Sir G.
Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)


Holmes, J. S.
Percy, Rt. Hon. Lord E.
Sutcliffe, H.


Hope, Captain Hon. A. O. J.
Perkins, W. R. D.
Tate, Mavis C.


Horsbrugh, Florence
Petherick, M.
Thomas, J. P. L. (Hereford)


Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hack., N.)
Pilkington, R.
Thomson, Sir J. D. W.


Inskip, Rt. Hon. Sir T. W. H.
Ponsonby, Col. C. E.
Wakefield, W. W.


James, Wing-Commander A. W.
Ramsay, Captain A. H. M.
Walker-Smith, Sir J.


Joel, D. J. B.
Ramsbotham, H.
Waterhouse, Captain C.


Keeling, E. H.
Rankin, R.
Wilson, Lt.-Col. Sir A. T. (Hitchin)


Law, R. K. (Hull, S. W.)
Rathbone, J. R. (Bodmin)
Wise, A. R.


Leckie, J. A.
Rayner, Major R. H.
Womersley, Sir W. J.


Lindsay, K. M.




Llewellin, Lieut.-Col. J. J.
Reed, A. C. (Exeter)
Young, A. S. L. (Partick)


Loftus, P. C.
Reid, W. Allan (Derby)



Lovat-Fraser, J. A.
Remer, J. R.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


McKie, J. H.
Rickards, G. W. (Sklpton)
Lieut.-Colonel Sir A. Lambert Ward


Macmillan, H. (Stockton-on-Tees)
Robinson, J. R. (Blackpool)
and Commander Southby.




NOES.


Acland, Rt. Hon. Sir F. Dyke
Griffiths, G. A. (Hemsworth)
Parkinson, J. A.


Acland, R. T. D. (Barnstaple)
Hall, J. H. (Whitechapel)
Pethick-Lawrence, F. W.


Alexander, Rt. Hon. A. V. (H'lsbr.)
Hardie, G. D.
Potts, J.


Ammon, C. G.
Harris, Sir P. A.
Price, M. P.


Anderson, F. (Whitehaven)
Henderson, A. (Kingswinford)
Quibell, J. D.


Batey, J.
Hills, A. (Pontefract)
Ritson, J.


Benson, G.
Holland, A.
Roberts, W. (Cumberland, N.)


Broad, F. A.
Hopkin, D.
Robinson, W. A. (St. Helens)


Brown, C. (Mansfield)
Jagger, J.
Rothschild, J. A. de


Buchanan, G.
Jenkins, A. (Pontypool)
Rowson, G.


Burke, W. A.
Jenkins, Sir W. (Neath)
Sanders, W. S.


Cluse, W. S.
Jones, A. C. (Shipley)
Sexton, T. M.


Daggar, G.
Kelly, W. T.
Silverman, S. S.


Dalton, H.
Kennedy, Rt. Hon. T.
Smith, Ben (Rotherhithe)


Davidson, J. J. (Maryhill)
Kirby, B. V.
Smith, E. (Stoke)


Davies, D. L. (Pontypridd)
Latham, Sir P.
Smith, T. (Normanton)


Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)
Lawson, J. J.
Sorensen, R. W.


Dobbie, W.
Leach, W.
Stephen, C.


Dunn, E. (Rother Valley)
Lee, F.
Stewart, W. J. (H'ght'n-le-Sp'ng)


Ede, J. C.
Leslie, J. R.
Strauss, G. R. (Lambeth, N.)


Fletcher, Lt.-Comdr, R. T. H.
Logan, D. G.
Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)


Foot, D. M.
Lunn, W.
Tinker, J. J.


Frankel, D.
McEntee, V. La T.
Watson, W. McL.


Gallacher, W.
McGhee, H. G.
Wilson, C. H. (Attercliffe)


Gardner, B. W.
MacNeill, Weir, L.
Windsor, W. (Hull, C.)


Garro-Jones, G. M.
Mander, G. le M.
Woods, G. S. (Finsbury)


George, Major G. Lloyd (Pembroke)
Marklew, E.
Young, Sir R. (Newton)


George, Megan Lloyd (Anglesey)
Marshall, F.



Green, W. H. (Deptford)
Maxton, J.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Greenwood, Rt. Hon. A.
Messer, F.
Mr. Whiteley and Mr. Mathers.


Grenfell, D. R.
Paling, W.

Resolved,
That the Additional Import Duties (No. 23) Order, 1935, dated the thirty-first day of July, nineteen hundred and thirty-five, made by the Treasury under the Import Duties Act, 1932, a copy of which was presented to this House on the said thirty-first day of July, nineteen hundred and thirty-five, be approved.

Resolved,
That the Additional Import Duties (No. 24) Order, 1935, dated the first day of August, nineteen hundred and thirty-five, made by the Treasury under the Import Duties Act, 1932, a copy of which was presented to this House on the said first day of August, nineteen hundred and thirty-five, be approved.

Resolved,
That the Additional Import Duties (No. 25) Order, 1935, dated the first day of August, nineteen hundred and thirty-five, made by the Treasury under the Import Duties Act, 1932, a copy of which was presented to this House on the said first day of August, nineteen hundred and thirty-five, be approved.

Resolved,
That the Additional Import Duties (No. 26) Order, 1935, dated the first day of August, nineteen hundred and thirty-five, made by the Treasury under the Import Duties Act, 1932, a copy of which was presented to this House on the said first day of August, nineteen hundred and thirty-five, be approved.

Resolved,
That the Additional Import Duties (No. 30) Order, 1935, dated the second day of September, nineteen hundred and thirty-five, made by the Treasury under the Import Duties Act, 1932, a copy of which was presented to this House on the twenty-second day of October, nineteen hundred and thirty-five, be approved.

Resolved,
That the Additional Import Duties (No. 31) Order, 1935, dated the second day of September, nineteen hundred and thirty-five, made by the Treasury under the Import Duties Act, 1932, a copy of which was presented to this House on the twenty-second day of October, nineteen hundred and thirty-five, be approved.

Resolved,
That the Additional Import Duties (No. 32) Order, 1935, dated the thirtieth day of October, nineteen hundred and thirty-five, made by the Treasury under the Import Duties Act, 1932, a copy of which

was presented to this House on the third day of December, nineteen hundred and thirty-five, be approved.

Resolved,
That the Additional Import Duties (No. 33) Order, 1935, dated the fourth day of December, nineteen hundred and thirty-five, made by the Treasury under the Import Duties Act, 1932, a copy of which was presented to this House on the said fourth day of December, nineteen hundred and thirty-five, be approved."—[Dr. Burgin.]

Orders of the Day — REFRESHMENT ROOMS AND LAVATORIES.

Resolved,
That it is expedient that a Joint Committee of Lords and Commons be appointed to consider and report upon the accommodation for Refreshment Rooms and Lavatories in the Palace of Westminster."—[Sir G. Penny.]

Message to the Lords to acquaint them therewith, and to desire their concurrence.

The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

It being after Half-past Eleven of the Clock upon Thursday evening, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at One Minute after Twelve o'Clock.